Standing there loading the dryer, not sure why my mother’s presence is so vivid in my senses, I don’t yet know that Baby happens to be storing some of Momma’s clothes and things for her down here in the basement. I don’t yet know that in a few weeks to come there will be one more blink, and that the channel will change, Momma will come home, and we’ll all be reunited, living just as before.

Just like the scripts being switched back, we’ll pick up where we left off—practically midsentence. Without explanation, and with Freddie.

All I know in the emptiness of Baby’s basement is that I’m about to cry until I can’t cry anymore, as the dam gets ready to bust from ten years’ worth of pent-up question marks and a Mississippi River’s worth of unshed tears.

But first, as her beautiful smell blankets me even more, just to be sure, I turn around and ask out loud, “Momma?”