My mother smells good, like the oatmeal soap she uses in the shower. Like patchouli. Like the cinnamon she sprinkles in her morning coffee. This person is different. This person died alone and has bruises, and must have been so, so frightened at what was happening, and she was alone when it happened, and I would never, never, never, not in a million years, have left my mother to die alone. That’s the sort of thing a bad daughter would do.
