She thought of her hair collecting at the bathroom floor vent, her sweat washing away down the shower drain. She thought of the way the house always seemed to be breathing with her, but just a half-beat behind, a close echo of her inhalations. She thought of the drain in the basement, and all the blood that had coated the pipes over the years her father had lived in the Crowder House. Of course that would be part of it. Because this house wasn’t just a building. It wasn’t studs and plaster and shoddy wiring. It was a home. It was made of the people who had lived—and died—inside it.
