I remember the click of the hospital clock, the hollow sound it made every hour, like a knock on a door no one was ever going to open. I was lying there, sore from gallbladder surgery, with the IV drip hissing beside me and a dull throb crawling under my ribs, each breath stretched against the bandage wrapping my abdomen.

The nurse had just said I could be discharged. I nodded, feigned gratitude, and reached for my phone. Outside the window, the trees of late autumn in Maine stood like tired old ghosts, their branches twitching in a wind that smelled like the end of something.

I had called him five times—Grayson Cotter, my only son, my only child. First call straight to voicemail. Second, the same. The third connected, then dropped. The fourth rang, no answer. Fifth time he picked up.

I barely got out a hello before he launched in, voice sharp like tin in my ear. My fingers clenched the phone, knuckles aching. I didn’t speak. I didn’t trust my voice, but I heard hers—Belle, my daughter-in-law—laughing behind him. That tight, mocking laugh she used like punctuation.

“Why is she calling again? Jesus, it’s like having a zombie on speed dial. Smells the same, too.”