Something inside me went quiet then. Not dramatically. No revelation music, no sudden speech. Just a small clean click, like a lock turning in a mechanism that had been loose for a very long time.
I slept in their guest room because I had committed to finishing what I started, and I was not yet the person who understood that some commitments were made to a version of events that no longer existed.
The second morning was hotter.
By ten, the shingles were almost too hot to handle with bare skin. I went through two pairs of gloves, the first pair going damp enough to raise blisters on my palms. I stripped the section above the living room, guided the old shingles down the tarp onto the driveway below, cut away a warped board near the ridge, and kept moving.
Around eleven, my mother opened the back door and called up.
