While she was soaking in hot springs and cutting birthday cake with Aileen, I was curled on the cold floor, slowly beginning to rot.
At the Pinecrest Hot Springs Resort, the air conditioning was set low, and beyond the windows stretched the vast open sea.
But Mom seemed distracted.
A strange tightness pressed against her chest, an unease she couldn't name, making it impossible to sit still.
She tapped her phone screen awake. Her finger drifted instinctively to the home security app, wanting to check on me, to see what I was doing.
But then she remembered that photograph covered in vicious words, and the text message I'd never answered. Her brow furrowed, and she shoved the phone back into her purse.
Aileen was a master at playing the victim.
To squeeze a little more sympathy out of Mom, she deliberately crashed into the pool wall while swimming that evening, leaving a sprawl of bruises across her shoulder.
"Mom, my shoulder hurts so bad. I can't move it."
Mom had no choice but to wrap an arm around her waist and walk her back to the room, one slow step at a time.