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“Miss Collins? This is Sonya. Your mother passed at 3:32 this morning. Peacefully, in her sleep.”

Peacefully. What a neat little word for the mess dying leaves behind.

I sat on the hotel bed, phone still pressed to my ear while Sonya rattled off next steps. Tyson stirred beside me, instantly alert despite the hour. One hand found my spine, steady pressure that kept me tethered while my mother’s nurse explained procedures and protocols.

“Her other daughter is already here,” Sonya added. “She’d like to speak with you.”

“No.”

“I understand. When can we expect you?”

“I’ll head out right now.”

Twenty minutes later, we were back in Tyson’s truck. We stayed the night at a hotel, and now I was glad we did. The roads were empty, streetlights creating pools of yellow against the dark. Neither of us spoke. What was there to say? My mother was dead.

I should have felt sad. Instead, I felt… relieved. And hated myself for it.

The house blazed with lights when we arrived. Every window glowing, as if brightness could chase away what had happened inside. Sophie’s Mercedes sat in the driveway next to an unfamiliar sedan. Probably the hospice nurse.

“You ready?” Tyson asked.

“No.”

We went in anyway.

Sophie stood by the hospital bed, holding the baby, tears streaming down her face. Real or performed? I couldn’t tell anymore. Maybe it didn’t matter. Our mother lay still, smaller than she’d seemed even yesterday. Death had a way of shrinking people, reducing them to the space they’d actually occupied instead of the shadow they’d cast.

“Sam.” Sophie’s voice cracked. “She just… she was fine when I got here and then I fell asleep and…”

“When did you get here?”

“Around midnight. I couldn’t sleep, thought I’d sit with her.” She shifted the baby, who fussed against her shoulder. “The nurse said her heart just stopped. No pain.”

No audience either. Diane Collins had died the way she’d lived, controlling the narrative until the end. No dramatic last words, no deathbed reconciliation. Just silence.

We stood on opposite sides of the bed, twin daughters who’d become strangers, while our mother’s body cooled between us. The nurse bustled around, professional and kind, pretending not to notice the arctic distance between the grieving siblings.

“There are arrangements to make,” Sonya said gently. “The funeral home, the service…”

“I’ll handle it,” I said automatically.

“We should do it together,” Sophie protested.

“Since when do we do anything together?”

She flinched but didn’t argue. Because we both knew the truth. Planning always fell to me.

***

The funeral happened two days later. Half of Charlotte’s social register crammed into pews, whispering about the twins who hadn’t spoken in months, the messy divorce, the scandal barely buried beneath funeral clothes.

Jess sent flowers. White lilies, no card, because she knew I’d know. She’d offered to fly down again but I’d told her Tyson was with me. “Good,” she’d said. “But I’m a phone call away. Always.”

I sat in the front pew, Tyson beside me, while Sophie sat across the aisle with Joel and the baby. Joel looked haggard, probably from raising another man’s child while handling a nasty separation. He’d decided to adopt him, apparently. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t biologically his. He’d said the baby felt his, so why would he abandon him? It was not his fault.

The pastor spoke about loss and love and God’s plan. Generic words for a specific woman who’d deserved better than she’d given herself. I stared at the casket, expensive wood and brass handles, and felt that relief again, followed immediately by guilt. What kind of daughter felt relieved her mother was dead?

The kind whose mother had failed her in fundamental ways. Who’d taught her to accept betrayal as the price of keeping peace. Who’d known the truth and chose silence over her daughter’s dignity.