JT Johnson

I froze.

Whatever relief might have been attempting to unfurl slowly withered.

My hands pausing on the rail.

My eyes locked on the figure in the doorway.

She was somehow thinner than before.

A ghost of a woman I had tried to exercise for my life decades ago.

Her hair was long again, pulled into a sloppy ponytail that had gone loose and frizzy at the nape of her neck.

There were streaks of gray through it now, glowing like threads of silver against the fluorescent flicker of Nona's porch light.

I inhaled.

A flood of words fought for entry into my mouth, clumping together to choke me as I looked up at her.

Well, look what the cat dragged in.

Nice to see you too, Mom.

My voice felt dry and not like my own as I finished walking up the steps.

What are you doing here?

She had crossed her arms over herself, the width of them alarmingly thin as she looked me up and down.

There were new pockmarks on her cheeks.

Her eyes had become sunken since I'd last seen her.

She looked skeletal, her jaw jutting left and right in a sort of ticking motion as she looked me up and down.

You got taller, kid.

A light laugh scratched the back of her throat, her eyes darting behind me, back to me, then behind me again.