I felt, God help me, less grief than a strange cold dread, because my mother and I had never been close, and I could not imagine what in that house was waiting for me.

Chapter 3 — The House I Grew Up In

I booked the first red-eye and landed in Tucson just after sunrise, and I did not go to the hospital first.

I went to the house.

I told myself it was practical — that someone had to see to the place, feed the cat, find my mother’s papers.

The truth was harder to name.