She was sorting the kitchen drawers when she found the list.
It was written on the back of an envelope — her mother's handwriting, the letters leaning slightly right as though heading somewhere. Milk. Brown bread. Batteries (AA). Tulips if they have them. The date at the top was from three months ago. The ink was blue and entirely ordinary.
She set the envelope on the counter and kept working. There were four drawers in the kitchen and all of them held more than made sense: rubber bands gone brittle, a door key for a lock she couldn't place, a pencil sharpener shaped like a world globe, a coupon for something discontinued years ago. She dropped the rubber bands into the bin. She kept the globe and didn't examine why.
The flat was very quiet at two in the afternoon. Traffic moved somewhere outside but didn't seem to enter. She noticed the way light came through the kitchen window and hit the tiles at an angle she hadn't thought about in years — not since she was a child standing on a stool to reach the sink. The tiles were the same tiles. Small yellow flowers, a little faded now at the grout lines.
She made tea without quite deciding to. Filled the kettle, waited, poured. Her hands did it while her mind was somewhere else entirely. She had done this every time she visited and the muscle memory had apparently not received the news.
Later she sat at the small table with her mug and read the list again. Tulips if they have them. A conditional clause. A small hope left standing open. She didn't know if her mother had found tulips that week or gone without, and she would not find that out now.
The slippers were still by the front door when she left, toes pointed toward the hall as though someone had just stepped out of them. She walked past them a fifth time. She pulled the door almost to closed and then stopped with her hand on the frame.
She thought, later, that she hadn't been waiting for anything. She was just not quite ready to hear the latch.
She pulled it shut.
The list was in her coat pocket. She hadn't decided to put it there.
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