I had always wondered: If I was brave enough to hug Gran, at the face of the aftermath would there be a difference?

Gran sat in the backseat and stayed dead silence throughout the drive to the funeral director’s office. She didn’t move or say a word when I pulled into the parking lot, nor did she react when I came back with mother’s official Statement of Death.

I remembered tapping nervously on both sides of the steering wheel as we drove back to Gran’s house. So instead of telling Gran I missed mother just much as her, I wished we could have done better for mother, or just something, I kept glancing at the rear-view mirror every five second. Waiting.

Gran lived three blocks from mother’s house.

When we went past mother’s house, neither of us started on the paperwork waiting to the now abandoned house. Technically, the house was mine, now that mother was dead, but we both knew I wouldn’t coming back to the house—or to this town, for the matter.

We drove past shuttled windows and slanted roofs tiled with thick leaves, ignoring the memories or the dust that had settled over the furniture and the walls by now.

The moment I pulled up to her house, Gran was already out of the door, crossing the lawn. I watched her petite form vanished behind the screen door, wide-eyed and helpless. I sat stupefied for long minutes, before slowly backed my car out of Gran’s driveway.