Page 80 of None Of Your Business

“Excellent. Use it.” He smiles. “One piece, Rowan.”

I look at the empty wall. “One?”

“One honest piece.” His voice softens. “Make it the one you don’t want anyone to see.”

Fifteen days.

One piece that’s mine.

I’m going to be sick.

“I’m leaving before you ask for anything else,” I tell him, grabbing my bag from the floor.

“Rowan?”

I stop at the door.

When I look back, he’s facing the paintings again.

“Spectacular.”

Twenty-Three

We started rotating Mom’s check-in schedule a year ago after we realized Noah and Madison were carrying too much of the load.

Mom hates when it’s my turn.

It’s not the check-in itself because she doesn’t fight the others on the rotation. There’s just something about her youngest daughter playing nursemaid that she can’t sit comfortably with.

Dad’s out of the house today, so it’s just the two of us.

“Mom?”

I take the stairs two at a time, ignoring the familiar burn in my left hip, and follow the quiet rustle of paper to the end of the hallway.

My old bedroom.

Mom is sitting cross-legged in the middle of my bed, though it hasn’t truly been mine for eight years. A cardboard box rests open beside her, old photographs and folded letters spread across the blanket.

For one terrifying second, my mind conjures every catastrophic scenario at once. Then she looks up, her eyes clear and present, and the panic drains from my chest as fast as it hit.

“Hey,” I say, stepping into the room. “You scared me.”

“Sorry, baby. I heard you call, but I got distracted.” She pats the spot beside her. “Come sit.”

My room has remained frozen in time since I moved out at eighteen.

Same pale yellow walls. Same window seat. Same faint water stain on the ceiling from the roof leak Dad never quite finished patching.

I was the second one out the door after Noah, desperate for my own space, and nobody had much reason to redecorate after that. It became storage, the way most childhood bedrooms eventually do.

I ease myself down beside her. “How are you doing, Mom?”

She cups my face in both hands, her thumbs brushing over my cheekbones as she studies me the way she used to when I was small and running a fever.

“How are you doing?” she asks softly. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“I was here three days ago.”