PART 1-The Missing Room

Previously

…Behind me, the gap in the wall where my mother sits seems to sigh. A soft exhalation, like the house itself breathing. "Bull." Lena's voice is barely a whisper. "Look." I turn. The gap has widened. The darkness beyond it is thinner now, and I can see the room more clearly. The bed. The nightstand. The lamp. My mother, still sitting on the edge of the mattress, her hands folded in her lap. She's holding something. A photograph. She lifts it, facing it toward the gap, toward me. It's the same photograph I have in my pocket. The room with the window. My mother's face in the glass. My reflection in the window. But in her version, the reflection isn't mine. It's hers.