The quiet room held a dense, droning weight, as if someone had just passed away, or was about to, and Elin recalled her mother’s white catatonic face at her father’s funeral, her lips slack with red lipstick she never wore. She didn’t speak that day, didn’t even cry. When she finally opened her mouth it was as if her vocal chords had been wrung between two fists, squeezing out the brightest tones, leaving behind an unpleasant brassy dullness that remained there to this day.
