Near the window, my mother sat in a vinyl chair with her phone in her lap.
She had not been crying.
Her mascara was not smudged.
Her hair was still neat.
She looked at me the way she used to look at a long line at the grocery store when she had frozen food in the cart and blamed the cashier for being human.
Tessa stood at the foot of my bed.
She had her arms folded and one hip angled slightly, as if she had been forced to attend a boring meeting.
Her eyes moved over the bruises on my face.
She did not look scared.
She looked offended.
“So dramatic,” she said. “You totaled your car for cracked ribs and a sprain?”
My mother gave a small laugh without lifting her eyes fully from her phone.
It was not loud.
It did not have to be.
That laugh went through me cleaner than pain.
