“The house swallowed the sound immediately, because it was a house that knew how to stay quiet. Vera breathed in the windows-shut smell of the place where she’d been born. The place where she’d grown up. The place she’d abandoned. The place where her mother was going to die.”

“The house swallowed the sound immediately, because it was a house that knew how to stay quiet. Vera breathed in the windows-shut smell of the place where she’d been born. The place where she’d grown up. The place she’d abandoned. The place where her mother was going to die.”

— Sarah Gailey