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My shoes step through mud and leaves where grass had once been. A sudden bang sounds from the house, making me jump. My gaze darts across the yard for the source. All the shutters are missing except for one that hangs by a single hinge, refusing to give in to the ravages of time and let go.

The air smells dry and dusty with a tinge of decay. The type of smell one finds in abandoned buildings.

I take reluctant steps toward the front door, raising my hand to knock when I’m close enough. So many layers of peeling paint, different colors fighting each other like a chaotic and uneven kaleidoscope.

I waver. Do I really want to do this? No. I don’t. But I need to. I need to see her again. Speak my mind. Be heard. Maybe give my mother one last chance. See if there is anything that can be salvaged between us even if I don’t believe there is.

The palms of my hands dampen, my heart flutters with an uneven tempo. What am I waiting for? I knock on the door. Wait. Knock again.

Thumping sounds come from inside, something crashes to the floor. The door yanks open, and she stands inside. My mother.

A multitude of images flash through my mind. A reverse timeline of my life—from the day I left without saying goodbye to my earliest memories. She’s even thinner now, yellowed skin hangs on her bones. Bloodshot eyes look at me, unseeing at first. Then a glimmer of recognition. A smile filled with rotting teeth.

“Becca …” Bony hands reach to me, and she pulls me to her chest. She’s frail to the touch. I both crave and am repulsed by the embrace. She steps to the side, making space for me to enter. I freeze at the door. Look around the room, strain to hear the sounds of someone else there with her.

Nothing has changed. The same dirty beige walls greet me. The same stained couch. Three empty soda cans and dirty dishes litter the old wooden table in the middle of the room. The old box TV is on with the sound turned off. A blanket hangs half on and half off the couch as if someone, she, was just lying on it, taking a nap, perhaps.

“Come in. It’s only me here.” She steps back. “All alone,” she adds. A tinge of guilt threatens to surface. I shut it down. She was always good at that. At making me feel guilty with a single word.

I step in, close the door. It’s stuffy and too hot inside. The air smells stale. It’s a miracle she remembers to pay the utility bills. Maybe someone else does. She never stayed alone too long. But she’s no longer the beautiful woman I grew up with. It’s hard to imagine anyone being attracted to her sickly figure.

“How are you, Mom?”

“I’m better, much better.” She sits on the couch and pats the spot next to her. The same couch Theodore attacked me on. Revulsion sends a shiver down my spine. She doesn’t look better.

I move the cans into the trash bin, put the dirty dishes in the sink, and sit on the table instead.

She pulls the blanked over her legs. Tucks it around herself. “How are you? You look good. What have you been doing all this time?”

I swallow. She doesn’t even know? “I’m doing well. I’m a senior in college, two more months until graduation.”

“I guess all that hard work and studying paid off. God knows I wasn’t any help.”

Her confession stuns me. This is the first time I have ever heard my mother say or do anything that remotely looks like accountability.

She pulls at a thread in the blanket. “After you left, I was so mad. First Theodore died …” Her eyes narrow, confused, and her gaze drifts, lost for a moment. She shakes it off. “Then you left. I didn’t know you left until the bills piled up, and they cut the power.”

Months. I was gone for months before she realized it?

“I thought you were in school still, or working, or hiding. I was in a terrible place. But I’m better now.” She lifts a sleeve to scratch at her arm.

Track marks line the inside of her elbow. I can’t stop staring at it. Venom bubbles up inside of me and spill out. “You don’t look better.”

“I knew then you weren’t coming back.” She continues as if I had said nothing. “I tried to get clean and failed. I failed more times than I can count. But I’m mostly clean now.”

“The track marks on your arm say different.”

“Ah, those? They’re old. I haven’t shot in almost a year. They itch like a mother though … but that might be a reaction to the meds too.”

What meds? I look around at the mess, an ashtray holds a blunt. Legal as it may be. “And that?” I point at the ashtray.

“That’s medicinal.”

I snort.

She nods. “It helps me breathe better.”

“Breathe better?”