I trudge through the soaking woods, the lush green stillness trembling in the afternoon shadows. There is no one around me, and the wild desire to pierce the thickness of my solitude is immense. Mother is gone, and I know very well that she will never come home. When she left, I think she was already fading away. It was something I never understood, and that is why I am standing in sheets of rain, vulnerable, and weaker than I have ever been, here in the unknown. The stories she would tell me! Mother, I mean. She would grab me by the waist, slip her hands under my knees, and carry me, breathless, to the old Moroccan rug next to the hissing fire. I think dreams were here favourite thing of all, but the harsh truth of reality confused her.  

There I was, my feet curled around the windowsill, twitching as unpleasantly cold night air came to greet them. The window was three stories up, it was extremely long, rimmed in washed-away white wood. I had flung it open, shortly after settling the cream envelopes (I ran out of white ones) onto the large mahogany desk of my father’s office.