The blanket doesn't smell like him anymore.
I know this intellectually—three days of holding it, breathing against the fabric, my own scent gradually replacing his. Milk and honey fading into something else.
Something that isn't my son.
But I keep it pressed into my face anyway.
It's all I have left.
Outside my door, Erica is crying again.
She's been there for hours. Maybe days.
Time moves strangely in this room, pooling in corners like water, refusing to flow properly.
"Mom, please," her voice cracks through the wood. Young. So young. My daughter is sixteen, and she sounds like a child begging for comfort I can't give. "Mom, just say something. Anything. I need to know you're alive there."
I am alive.
Technically.
My heart beats. My lungs draw air. Blood moves through veins,
