“No,” you say at last, and your voice sounds different now, deeper, sharpened by something beyond sorrow. “No one is ever going to say that to you again.”
Above you, a door opens.
Then another.
Footsteps move across the upstairs hallway.
The dispatcher says officers have turned onto your street.
The house, your old house, the one on a leafy block in Indianapolis where you once hosted birthday parties and Christmas dinners and Sunday roasts big enough for three generations, suddenly feels like a trap built from memory itself. You know every staircase, every vent, every blind corner, every place sound carries. And because you know it so well, you know something else too.
If Rodrigo reaches the funeral room and sees the open coffin before the police get here, he will come looking.Funeral & Bereavement
You tell the dispatcher you are putting the phone down for a second. She tells you not to hang up. You set the receiver on top of the dryer, still open, and press your ear toward the ceiling.
Baked Goods
No voices yet.
But the footsteps are faster now.
