Trudging up a cracked driveway, a voice stopped me in my tracks. “You’re late.” The voice sounded as if it were coated in sandpaper and dunked in acid. Raspy and patchy, as if not every tone could make it out of her throat. I stilled, forcing my gaze to the woman on the front steps. I wouldn’t call her “Mom”. Not even in my mind. She certainly wasn’t recognizable as the woman who’d raised me. Not that she had been especially warm then, either. She’d always been…distant. But I’d had my dad, so it hadn’t mattered. But now, the woman who had once been so put together was…fraying.
