The sheets were cold. I woke up alone.

    The state that the bed was in told me that Nin had been absent for quite some time.

    'Under any other circumstances...'

    The voices in the house were indecipherable murmurs-- hushed tones of singing sorrow. I pulled on my jeans and t-shirt from the floor then poked my head out of the bedroom door.
    Rita walked past in a black Sunday dress. Her eyes widened when she saw me.

   
    "Heavens, Lee! Why aren't you dressed?" She whispered in a scold.
    I looked down at myself to check. I was, in fact, clothed.
    "Eh?"
    "Your suit? You did bring a suit?" She paused as she waited for the words to stick, "Your brother's funeral?"
    My stomach lurched.
    "I..."
    "Oh, you poor sweetheart," Rita consoled, "I'll get you a cuppa. You get in the bath. Hurry!"
    "Where's mum?"
    "Ooooohhh... I wouldn't disturb her. She's in a bad way-- already chucked your dad from the room. He's in the garage sittin' in the car like he's ready to go for over an hour now-- and there's still time yet. Nevermind that there's a hired car come to get..."
    "Pardon me," I breezed past her, down the hallway and up the stairs. Rita pleaded after me.
    "Oh! Please don't. Please, please don't..."

    "Cynthia-- may I come in, luv?" Helena was stationed outside the door to my parents room like some sort of trained dog. She fixed me with a scornful glare at my approach. I reached for the door handle.
    "Your mum is busy at the mo," Helena stated as though she had any say at all on who my mother was accepting as a visitor.
    "Don't care--," I muttered. I attempted to twist the knob but it remained still. Locked. I knocked on the door, "Mum... it's me."
    "You are insolent-- for your information, she hasn't allowed anyone in all morning-- including your father," Helena said.
    I ignored her completely. I spoke to the door.
    "Mum, please let me in."
    "I seen your friend, Nin, this morning-- she's a strange one, inn't she?"
    Helena knew how to get attention when she craved it. I slowly turned toward her. I attempted to control my tone as not to seem too interested in what information she had to give me.
    "Yeah?"
    "Yeah," She gave a curt nod.
    "Did she seem alright, then?"
    "Sure," Helena shrugged, "Why wouldn't she be? Wasn't her brother who died..."
    "Where did you see her?"
    Helena seemed genuinely confused by my enquiry.
    "Back garden. Smoking like a chimney-- must'a been 'bout five this morn..."
    "Smoking?"

    I felt my jeans pockets for the pack of cigarettes. They were empty.

    I heard the caliber in the door unlock. It was a sound as familiar to me as my own childhood and any moment that my mother needed solitude.

    "Lee," My mother's voice weakly summoned me from behind the closed door.

    I entered the room quickly with the exaggerated gesture of shutting Helena out.

    "I wish you would at least pretend to like Helena at a time like this..."

    My mother was sat at her vanity in a plain-looking black dress without a stitch of makeup on her face. She had a pearl necklace tangled round her fingers. She looked over her shoulder at me. She was poorly.

    "Forgive me. At a time like this my patience is extremely thin making it impossible to even pretend to tolerate your sister."
    "Sylvie rang for Nin a couple hours ago," My mother changed the subject, "Your dad took her over to Ian's flat. She'll get Sylvie to the funeral."
    I nodded my understanding.
    "Did something happen between the two of you?"
    "How do you mean?"
    "Is there a reason that you are concerned about where she is and how she is?"
    "Yes," I admitted, dryly.
    I knew my mother wanted to impart wisdom upon me but restrained herself.
    "I only knew your dad for a month before I married him. Everyone protested. Your grand dad begged me not to do it. Told me he would buy me a car if I didn't go through with it. But I was young and reckless... and nineteen. Your dad wore really cool jeans. I used to go down to the river and play guitar and sing round the fire because I wanted to be a singer..." 
    "Mum?"
    Her shoulders slumped forward and she started to cry.
    "How can I bury him, Lee? I gave him a name."
    I knelt down in front of her.
    "Anyone else and I could manage," She wept, "But not you and not Ian. Not Ian-- please God, not Ian. Not Ian-- how can I live without Ian? I don't want to know how..."
    My heart hurt in such a way that it caused physical pain throughout my body. It was akin to the flu-like symptoms that I had experienced in the studio a few nights prior-- only ten fold.
    I covered my mum's hand with my own. We had the same long, white fingers. I pressed my face against her stringy bicep.
   
    The door opened a crack without anyone being visable.
    "Lee-- Cyn-- I brought tea for you," Rita offered, meekly, "I'm just gonna leave it outside the door. Lee, I laid out your suit for you."
    I listened as her footsteps dissolved into the distance.
    My mother sniffed, forcing her own composure. She took her hand from underneath mine and patted my arm in a way that wasn't comforting but a signal that our current interaction was wrapped up.
   
    "It's time to get dressed, Lee."

***

    Nin was a black and white photograph. A Great War bride stood on the shore awaiting her sailor with her spine straight and her shoulders back. She wore an ivory short-sleeved silk blouse tucked into a high waisted black silk skirt. Her collar was tied into a loose bow. Her hair was down and her left arm was locked with Sylvie's right arm. The ancient gray stone church in the background dwarfed both girls with an ominous shadow.
   
    Nin's eyes met mine and she offered me a warm look that was nothing more or less than sympathy. Her feet stayed fixed in their spot on the green grass. She did not come to me.
   
    'May I come with you?'

    And here we were. At the funeral... but I didn't know those two people sat in the pub from a few days prior any longer. They might as well have been two different people at two different funerals.
   
    But they certainly weren't us.

    I walked into the church without acknowledging either girl or the priest waiting at the door to greet the family.

    There were stained glass portraits of saints with the light pouring through them leaving patterns of colour on the polished wood pews. White prayer candles, that looked as though they had been lit for days, sat on rows of black iron holders beneath statues of a somber Mary. The prayers may have well been answered long before the flames went out. And, oh, the flowers! There were flowers-- more flowers than I had ever seen in any one place-- at the alter.

    There existed two human bodies in the church. Myself-- and Ian in the box that contained him. I closed the gap between us with careful steps down the marbled aisle.
   
    The footsteps of my dress shoes echoed. Even still, I can't get that sound out of my head-- just as much as I can't get the sound of the silence of when they stopped out of my head because I had reached that box.
   
    I gently set my hands on the mahogany lip and looked down.

    His face was painted serene. His skin clear and his cheeks too rouge. His soft brown hair had been cut in a clean fashion. A little shorter than I had remembered him wearing it with the front lined up straight against his brow. Which he never would have done. The more I stared at him the more this offended me.
    I hesitated as I reached out and swept the hair to the side of his forehead.
    "There," I whispered to him, "You know, you look pretty good for a guy who suffered a fall. I'm fucking angry that they put you in this box, though, 'cos I'm one of the people who has to carry you out of here and it probably weighs a ton--," I looked over my shoulder to make sure that we were still the only people in the building, "Probably shouldn't say fuck in church."
    I paused as though I were waiting for him to respond. He didn't say anything. My eyes ached.
    "I wish that I had something to give you," I choked, "This is my last chance to give you something and I don't even have anything to give you that you can take with you. I'm not going to have another chance to give you anything... I have your mobile but I wanna keep it. I'll carry it in my pocket every day. I'll let it weigh me down so you can wear those stupid jeans... please don't be dead."
    I touched his cold, lifeless hand.
    "Please. Mum needs you. And dad... and me. I need you and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't a better brother. I'm sorry that I don't have anything to give you..."
    I felt a hand on my shoulder and I jumped.
    "Son, it's time," said the priest.
    "May I have just another minute, please?"
    He gave a sympathetic nod, "Alright, but then we need to start allowing people in."
    "Thank you, Father."

    I waited to hear his footsteps fade before I spoke again.

    "He's not my father," I muttered,"I can't believe this is the last time that I'm going to see your stupid face."
   
    I reached down into my pockets for something, anything, that I could send him off with. I only had his phone, a new pack of cigarettes, my wallet and keys-- keys.
   
    I pulled the keys out of my pocket and struggled one from the ring.

    "This is the key to my flat. No one has ever been allowed in. Just me-- and Nin," I slipped the key into the breast pocket of his suit, "You can come in any time you want."

    I leaned forward and kissed his head.

    "I love you. I'll see you again."

    I backed away from the casket, made it a few steps down the aisle and quickly turned on my heel to return to Ian.
   
    I looked at his face once more. I kissed him once again. I repeatedly told him that I loved him right up until the moment that the priest gently guided me away.



    Ian had more friends than I had realized him to have. There were so many people who loved my brother that the church could not seat them all and several stood in the back.
    I heard stories about Ian that I had never heard before.
    There were the stories about how funny he was like the one about how, when he was in school, he went to a party that he had been kicked out of because he was a little punk kid and it was a party full of posh kids. Upon being given the boot, he went across the way and called a noise complaint in to the police then hid in the bushes to watch the party get busted up.
      There were the stories about how kind he was. The ones about how he was the mate that people rang in the middle of the night when they were having a rough go of it and, no matter what the hour, he would come round to their houses with some chocolate or booze or a record and put the kettle on and just be present.
    Then there were the stories that I did know. The stories about how he was a gifted painter who had just begun to have showings in galleries under his own name and was making a living off of his work. The ones about how girls loved him. The stories from childhood like the one about how he broke his arm when he tried to jump from the roof of the garage using a pillow case as a parachute. I was bloody angry when that happened. He was seven and I was nine and I was jealous because he was getting attention. I spit in every glass of orange juice our mother had me bring to him during that time... until she found out that I was doing so.
    I was the one who convinced him that we should flood the kitchen to make an indoor swimming pool. We stopped up the kitchen sink and brought the garden hose in. There was half an inch of water on the floor before our dad found us and I honestly thought that we would never see the light of day again.
   
    There were the stories that only I knew and that I couldn't stop thinking about when I couldn't bear to listen to the mourners drone on any longer.
     
    I used to hit him. When we were young and he wouldn't do what I wanted him to... if he wanted to stop playing or tattle to mum. Even when he got bigger than me. I was a bruiser. I was awful to him.
    I gave him his first cigarette (I nicked it from Helena) and his first beer (I nicked it from Dad). We shared the beer underneath Dad's work bench in the garage while our parents were attending a wedding... this was before I knew that the scotch was hidden behind us the whole time. I gave him the first two records he fell in love with: The Clash 'Super Black Market Clash' and The Smiths 'The Queen is Dead'. I stole his first girlfriend just because I could and broke up with her within a week because I had started seeing her best friend... who I also broke up with within a week...
    And despite all of this... he always loved me. Always. He always thought the world of me. From the moment he was born, I was his favorite person on the planet... and I always treated him like he never deserved to be alive in the first place... and now he was dead.
    My mum was sat to the right of me and my father to the right of her. Rita was on my left side and I secretly thanked her for sparing me from Helena-- who was to her left. Sylvie was sat a pew over and she had a million friends there, some of her best friends and a sister, even, but still, for some reason, she only wanted Nin and this did my head in because right then... I only wanted Nin, too.
   
    I wanted to be sat in an empty pub with the jukebox on. Completely alone-- just me and Ian and Nin. It would have been fun there just the three of us. It would have made sense.

    I didn't say anything at the funeral, though I could have. I watched as they closed the lid on my brother, taking with it my final look at his flesh, then asked for me to help carry him away from the waking world. He weighed close to nothing on my shoulder with the help of everyone else. He practically weighed an extra mobile phone in my pocket.

    I had carried him on my back when we were young.

    We slid him into the hearse. I avoided eye contact with the other mourners as I ducked into the car awaiting Mum, Dad & myself. I stared out the window without being able to notice any one thing. The scenery was a blur of gray and green. My mother pulled my head to her shoulder and embraced me in her arms. My dad wrapped an arm around us both and looked out the window opposite mine. We traveled in silence.

    The casket had been placed on a sort of pulley above a perfectly rectangular hole dug into the earth. It was slowly and with great care that he was lowered down into the ground--
   
    --and it was with this action that my heart could bear no more. I unhinged my mother's arm from my own and, without a word of explanation, walked away from the funeral.

    I walked faster and faster until I was running and ended up in a part of the cemetery that had been neglected. It was overgrown with foliage and trees and disintegrated tombstones that marked the graves of people who had been dead long before there was the knowledge that a place like America existed. My lungs ached and I fell to the tall grasses. I clawed at my face and let out a pained scream that I stifled with the sleeve of my suit jacket.
   
    I heard a great animal rustle through the plants and ease itself down beside me.
   
    "Lee Lee Lee," Nin soothed, feverishly. She attempted to pull my hands from my face. "Lee..."
    I jerked away from her.
    "Don't. Touch me."
    "I'm just trying to keep you from hurting yourself," She comforted in a soft, slightly confused, voice. Once again she attempted to take my hands from my face and once again I skirted her efforts. I dropped my hands of my own accord and fixed her with a scornful look.
    "You mock me with your pity."
    She flinched, "I don't understand..."
    "You, a spoiled, rotten little child would dare to utter words of care toward me-- about my well-being? You don't think about anyone but yourself."
    She pulled her hands into her stomach, "I deserve that. Last night..."
    "Oh!" I bemoaned with a roll of my eyes, "For fucks sake! Fuck last night! And fuck you! I did not ask for THIS!" I rose to my feet, "I did not ask to be stuck with some mad girl! That you should live and not want it and that Ian should die and want to live..."
    She stood.
    "mybrotherisdead. mybrotherisdead. mybrotherisdead... and still YOU BREATHE!!!" I screamed my fury at her. 
    She cowered.
    "I'm so sorry," She murmured.
    "That means nothing to me. Do you want to die, Nin? Do you still want to die? After seeing all this?"
    She was silent.
    "ANSWER ME!"
    She stared at me in horror.
    "do. you. still. want. to. die?"
   
    She choked up tears. Her face blotchy red and horrible. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

    I wanted to strangle her around her perfect, smooth neck. I wanted to apply so much pressure that the coroner would be able to quickly identify me as her killer because my fingerprints were mapped out in the broken blood vessels of her ivory skin...
   
    I picked up a stone from the ground and threw it into the woods with all of my strength.

    "DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!"
   
    "YESYESYES!" She screamed back through the sobs that racked her body.

    I lifted another stone but felt suddenly weak. My fingers released it back to the ground.
   
    "Then stop the beating of your sick heart, crawl into that open grave and give me my brother back. Just-- give me my brother back."

   

    Nin inhaled deeply and quieted her crying. She looked first at a rotting tombstone then to me. She brushed away a few escaping tears from her eyes with her fingertips.

    "I'm going to leave," She took a few steps backward then stopped. She took a few steps toward me.
   
    "If there is one thing that I learned from growing up where I did-- it's that junkies die, Lee." She paused and stepped backward again, "And you probably should have let Sylvie tell you about it when she gave you the chance."

    My vision blurred.

    I didn't even see Nin as she stumbled out of the woods and away from me for the last time.

    I stormed out to where the last remaining mourners were returning to their cars. I fixated on Sylvie and nothing else.

    "Tell me that Ian fell," I grabbed her by the shoulders, "Look me in the eyes and tell me that Ian fell."
    She gasped.
    "Did he fall? Did Ian fall?"
    "Lee!"
    "Did he fall?" I shook her.
    "Lee! Lee!" Sylvie begged, "Your mother!"

    I looked over Sylvie to see my mum; her expression painted of terror. She lifted a hand to her mouth and jerked her head to and fro in a kind of denial. My enquiries were hitting on somewhere she didn't wish to think about and my actions were repulsive to her.

    My hands went limp where they lay on Sylvie's person.

    "Mum?"
   
    Sylvie slid from beneath my hands and turned to my mother with a sort of forced calm.

    "Cynthia, Lee is going to drive me back to yours. We'll take my car."

    My mother turned from us without response and walked away.

    Sylvie waited until mum was out of earshot before she addressed me again.
   
    "You do drive, correct?"
    "I know how to-- yes. I just don't."
    "Can you do so now?"
    "I'm not sure if I should..."
    "We don't have a choice, Lee. You either drive us away from here or we stay. I'm in no state to drive."
   
    I glanced behind me at the gaping hole in the earth that now claimed Ian's decaying body.

    "I'll drive."

***

    "Take me to church."

    I knit my brow as I focused on the roads. The truth was that I was actually a good driver. I always had been. I chose not to drive because I could never afford a car of my own and had no real need for one in London.
   
    Plus, I liked the drink.

    "Church?"
    "Yes. Not the one that the service was in," Sylvie instructed, "But some place peaceful where we can sit and talk in hushed tones."
    "Why do you want to tell me in church?"
    She paused, "Because it might cleanse the situation-- and my hope is that it will keep you from causing a scene."
    "I do not cause scenes."
    Sylvie shot me a look.
    I sighed, resigned.
    There was a brief silence.
    "Does Nin know what happened to Ian?"
    "Yes. I told her. Nin, your mum and the coroner are the only people outside of myself who know what happened to Ian. Your mother is struggling to believe it-- but it won't stay a secret. The pieces will get put together and people will talk and it'll eat the whole lot of us alive. I was trying to prepare you the other day because of, the people who know what actually happened,-- you might be the only one who could understand it. He loved you more than anything, Lee. Really."
    "Don't say that."
    "It's the truth. You hate the truth."
    "I can't do this with you right now--."
    "There is no other time or way to do it."
    "I meant the affection. Please. Just don't keep going on with the affection."
    "Why does him loving you bother you so much?"
    "Because he's dead!"
    Sylvie sunk back into her seat.
    "Mind you best control your tone, Mister Highbary. I won't stand for it. Not today."
    "I'm sorry."
    "You're quite into shouting today-- I've noticed."
    A shiver went through me.
    "You heard me yelling at her?"
    "I wasn't the only one... church is on the left. Park here."

    "He had been using for..." Sylvie shook her head as she struggled to either remember or make peace with the words coming from her parted lips. She stared ahead at the statue of the Virgin Mother. I slouched against the uncomfortable wood pew.
    "... it started two years ago-- but I don't think that I really acknowledged it or took it seriously until the past year. I lived with him. Spent night and day with him and refused to see it. Refused to notice the things gone missing around the house or the friends that stopped coming round or the new people who called themselves friends who started coming round. I treated the nods as though he were merely tired and the mood swings... It seemed too incredible to be true. I gave myself excuses to stay out late or visit my mum. I was traveling for work. He was trying to hide it from me and spent more time in his art studio. Sometimes he wouldn't come home for a week at a time. I was scared to go check on him. Scared that he was already dead. Maybe that's my fault. Maybe if I would have accepted it sooner..."
    "There wasn't anything that you could have done," I assured her.
    "I know that. I know it... I just don't want to know it because it makes me helpless. I was with him for seven years... and up until the last year-- they were all good years. We were happy from the start."
    "I envy that."
    "You shouldn't. Not now. Because right now-- all those happy years don't mean a damn thing. In the end he loved something more than he loved me and it killed him."
    "I doubt he loved it, Sylvie. He overdosed..."
    "No. That would have been simple."
    "What happened?"
    Sylvie gave a pause so long that I almost wondered if I should repeat myself.
    She turned her gray eyes to me.
   

    "He jumped."

    Acidic vomit ate away at my esophagus and I gagged as I swallowed it back down. I violently shook my head. Sylvie put her hand at my back.

    Suicide. Suicide. Suicide. Suicide. suicidesuicidesuicidesuicidesuicide...

    My body had a seizure but my mind was aware of it.

    "And you watched him do it?"

    "I tried to stop him," She covered her eyes with her palms, "I was on the ground. Please don't blame me, Lee. Please. I'm scared your mother does. I didn't mean-- I just-- He tried to quit and he couldn't. He just couldn't. And I told him that I would leave him and he was so sick and still he couldn't and then when I found out that I was pregnant-- I just started packing boxes and he-- he jumped."
    Sylvie cried. I stared at her.
    "Pregnant?"
    She nodded.
    "Are you still..."
    "Where would it go?
    "And Ian is..."
    "How dare you ask me that! Of course."
    "Forgive me. I don't exactly live in a world with the most faithful people. I'm just in shock... Mum knows?"
    "Yes."
    "What are you going to do?"
    "It's too late for me to do anything-- not that I would have."
   
    I drank in air. I got up from the pew and walked up to the statue of the Virgin that Sylvie had been staring at. I knelt in front of it and bowed my head but I wasn't praying. I wasn't believing. I was just thinking. thinking. thinking.
    Sylvie came and knelt beside me.
    I felt a sort of clarity.
    "It wasn't the pregnancy that he was scared of. You must know that. He was scared he wouldn't get better."
    "How do you know?" Sylvie asked.
    "Because Ian and I are made up of the same thing... and I've been scared, too."
    "Gotten someone pregnant?"
    I almost wanted to laugh at this, I smiled in an awkward way, "Not that I'm aware of...uh, that's a frightening statement... but I know what it's like to want to get better and to know that I'll never get any better than I am now. That I'm good inside but that I'm still no good."
    "Nin." Sylvie stated. It wasn't a question.
    "God, I don't even know her."
    "I like her."
    "I can see that."
    "I like her for you."
    I looked at her face lit by prayer candles. She was being sincere.
    "She wants to die," I felt saline in my eyes.
    "Oh, I heard the yelling. It's not true. If she really wanted to die-- she would have already... and you wouldn't have known about it. She's scared like Ian-- like you-- but she's not sick like Ian was... or, maybe, even like you. She's desperately searching for-- fighting even--for a reason to live-- and she followed you here."
    I tilted my head back.
    "Lee. It's you."
    "I can't keep anyone alive."
    "Nobody can keep anyone alive. But if she's looking for a reason to live-- you can show her that there is still some goodness in the world."
   
    I brought my gaze back to Sylvie. She lifted the corner of her mouth. She glowed from the pregnancy. Glowed from the candlelight. Glowed from the tears and, despite every thing that she had been through in the past couple of days, glowed with hope.

    "God is giving you a chance to absolve yourself of your every sin."
    "Do you know where she is?" I asked.
    "No," Sylvie shook her head, "Last I saw her, she was getting a cab back to mine to pick up her things."
    "She wouldn't have stayed," I surmised, defeated.
    "If I were in a foreign country and didn't know a soul--I would probably stick to what I do know. I expect she's halfway back to London by now."
    I clambered to my feet.
    "Take me to the train, Sylvie."
    She reached out and plucked a long wooden match from the container. She passed it up to me.
    "Light one of these before you go. You'll need it."
    "I won't-- but Ian will."
    "Then we'll both light one for good measure."

***

    My mother ran away from me before I had finished opening the front door.

    She had been standing at the end of the hall and I watched as she sprinted up the stairs towards the sanctuary of her bedroom.

    I knew that she didn't fear me so much as she feared my reaction to what she knew that Sylvie had told me.

    I chased after her, leaving the front door ajar, and stopped the bedroom door with my foot blocking her attempt to lock me out.

    I shut and locked the door behind me.

    Mum collapsed onto the chair at her vanity. There were tears streaming down her face.

    "So... there's going to be a baby--"
    "Please don't be angry with me, Lee," She begged.
    "Why would I be angry with you?"
    "Because I knew!"
    "Mum, this isn't your fault."
    "The last couple of times that I saw him-- I knew that something wasn't right-- that he wasn't well but I did nothing..."
    "What could you possibly have done?"
    "Something! Anything! I was his mother!" She looked down at the protruding veins on the back of her hand then pulled her fingers inward to form a fist, "I am still his mother."
    "You could not have saved him."
    "It is my job to care for you boys. It is what God called me to do."
    "Mum, you didn't fail."
    "I raised two addicts..."
    "Mum. Mum? I'm alive. I'm doing-- alright."
    She shook her head in sadness.
    I wanted to convince her otherwise but was too mentally exhausted to give reason.
   
    I sighed.
   
    "I have to go back to London."
    "You do owe that girl an apology."   
    "I owe a lot of people an apology... but, yes, her in particular."
    "I have never in my life heard someone shouting like that."
    "Today I have done many things that I never thought myself capable of... Mum, I'm scared."
    "I am, as well, Lee. More than you can fathom." She looked in the mirror at the reflection of me over her shoulder.
    "I'll come back... tomorrow... or in a couple of days--once I--"
    She turned towards me. She stopped my words short.
    "I want you to live. Lee. Please."
    "What does that even mean, Mum? Living?"
   
    She feebly rose up from her chair and placed both of her hands upon my shoulders. She looked me in the eyes.

    "It's the good bits and the gory ones. It's what makes you happy."

    But what is your happiness?
   
    Nin. I had to get to Nin.

    "Mum...," I spoke with urgency.
    "Do not attempt to live your life in place of Ian's..."
    "I have to go."
    She nodded and inhaled sharply. She folded her arms around me. It was the warmest, most comforting embrace that I had ever known.
    "I love you, Lee."
    She kissed my ear. Her voice warbled through trying to contain the tears I knew would flood once I was out of sight.
    "I love you, Mum."
    I squeezed her. I kissed the top of her head.
   
    I looked back at her when I made it to the bedroom door. She pulled up the corner of her mouth.

    "Give me a ring once in awhile, would ya? I know more than you think. I haven't always been your mother... though, I'm certain you believe that I was born to be."

    I gave a small bow as I closed the door behind me.