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Strangely, my mother and I only talked about the incident one other time, not long after Matty was sent down.
‘I never understood it,’ she slurred.
She was slumped on the couch sipping gin, half-cut. Staring into the bottom of her glass, the days of sweetening wine with OJ far behind her.
‘Understood what?’ I prompted.
She was always starting sentences mid-thought when she’d been drinking.
‘The oven.’ She was frustrated, as if it were my fault I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. ‘I know I didn’t use it that night. Or lock those windows. I never did. That high up and looking out onto the street, they were hardly a security risk.’
‘But they were a way to call for help.’
‘Exactly,’ she said.
