I rolled over, aware that my entire body ached as if I’d been hit by a wrecking ball - it might have been in the proverbial sense, but that didn’t lessen the damage. She was cleaning. That wasn’t good. “Mom?” My voice was so hoarse I barely recognized it. “You’re up,” she replied. She came over to the sofa, and sat beside me, a glass of water in her hand. “When did you get here?” I gulped the water down, sighing when my parched throat no longer felt like I’d swallowed sandpaper. “Two days ago,” my Mother sighed. “Your friend, Annabelle, called me. She stopped by but you didn’t answer, and your phone was off.” “So you came all the way here?” My Mother looked affronted, and even with the slight grey in her hair, she still did the whole ‘don’t-mess-with-me’ expression really well. “What kind of question is that? Of course I came.” “How did you know where I lived?” After all the chaos that ensued once I got back from seeing my Mother, I had yet to give her my new address.
