Page 80 of Shattered

“Delia, sweetheart. We need to talk about the house.”

I didn’t move. “What about it?”

“We need to sort your mother’s things. Daniel and I have been putting it off but keeping everything exactly as she left it isn’t healthy. For any of us.”

“You want to pack up her stuff,” I said stiffly.

“I want to help you both move forward. That means going through her belongings. Deciding what to keep, what to donate.” Her voice was gentle. “I know it’s hard. But it needs to be done.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. And you will. Because staying frozen isn’t honoring her memory. It’s just avoiding the pain.” She paused. “Saturday. Ten a.m. Be there.”

She hung up before I could argue.

Saturday came with the kind of sunny weather that contrasted painfully with the cold gloom in my heart. Like the universe was mocking me. It was saying;look how beautiful the world is while you’re falling apart.

I stood outside the house trying to remember how to breathe normally. The lawn needed mowing. The mailbox was overflowing. The wreath Mom had hung on the door months ago was still there, faded and sad.

Inside was worse.

Everything was exactly as she’d left it. Daniel was already there, standing in the middle of the living room looking lost. He’d aged since the funeral—new lines around his eyes, gray at his temples that seemed to have appeared overnight. He looked like he’d been sleeping as poorly as I had.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

We stood there in our mother’s house surrounded by her absence and neither of us knew what to say.

Maria appeared from the kitchen with garbage bags and boxes. “Let’s start with the bedroom. It’ll be easier than the common spaces.”

Nothing about this was going to be easy.

Mom’s bedroom smelled like her perfume. The same one she’d worn my entire life. Floral and warm and so perfectly her that I had to grip the doorframe to stay upright.

Her bed was made—hospital corners, perfect, like she’d be coming back any minute to mess it up again.

We started with the closet. Maria pulled out clothes while Daniel and I sorted them into piles. Keep. Donate. Trash.

Most of it went to donate. Teaching clothes. Casual outfits. Dresses she’d worn to school events. All of it too full of her to keep, but too impersonal to matter.

Then Maria pulled out the dress Mom had worn to my college graduation. Blue. Her favorite color.

I took it and held it against my chest and couldn’t let go.

“Keep pile,” Daniel said quietly.

I folded it carefully. Set it aside with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.

We worked in silence. Maria directed. Daniel followed instructions and I moved through everything like I was underwater. The world felt distant. Muffled.

At the back of the closet, tucked behind shoe boxes and old purses, Maria found a jewelry box.

Wooden. Carved. Beautiful in that way antique things were.

“Her mother’s,” Maria said. “Your grandmother’s. Elena always kept her important things in here.”

She handed it to me.