My phone buzzed again.
Victoria.
I’m having your mother’s roses removed from the garden tomorrow, her text said. Time to let go of the past.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
I could see the roses clearly: deep crimson, planted along the front path, dancing in the sea breeze. Mom had cared for those bushes like they were old friends. She’d talked to them while she pruned, humming under her breath, fingers stained green. She’d given cuttings to neighbors, saying, “So a little piece of our home can bloom at yours.”
Time to let go of the past.
I didn’t reply. There was nothing I could say that would matter to her. She wasn’t trying to inform me. She was trying to hurt me. To mark the house as hers by tearing out one of the last tangible pieces of Mom.
Instead, I set my phone aside and went to my bedroom.