Where the Light Ends

day 8/30

After the accident, Mara’s mother stopped cooking.
Most nights, she sat at the kitchen table, staring at the wall as if waiting for something that never came.

Mara learned to eat whatever she could find, dry cereal, apples if they hadn’t gone soft. She’d leave slices outside her mother’s door. Sometimes they were gone by morning. Sometimes not.

When Mara knocked, her mother’s voice would come, low and tired. “Go away.”

“But I’m hungry,” Mara whispered once.

“Please,” her mother said. “Don’t do this tonight.”

The nights were the worst, quiet and too long. The house seemed to breathe.

She doesn’t hate you, something said once, very softly, from under the bed. She just can’t see you anymore.

Mara sat up. “Who’s there?”

Someone who listens.

It told her her mother just needed reminding. Bring me something she loves, the voice said, and she’ll remember you.

So Mara took the silver locket her mother used to wear, the one with their picture inside, and slid it under her bed. The dark seemed to settle, like a sigh.

The next morning, her mother looked better.
Color in her face again. Hair brushed.
She sat by the window, whispering, “I dreamed you were still here.”

“I am,” Mara said, stepping closer.

Her mother smiled sadly. “You always said that.”

Later, her mother sat alone at the table, turning the empty locket over in her hands.

“I have to stop,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t want me to live like this.”

Mara reached for her hand, but her fingers met only air.

The light from the window slid through her, warm and weightless.

poor mama. if only Mara didn’t die.