'Dead mother.'
The words just sat there in his head and wouldn't leave.
He walked up the stairs and they followed him. He turned the corner of the corridor and they followed him there too. He reached his door, pushed it open, stepped inside, and locked it behind him.
'Just like your dead mother.'
He stood in the middle of his room.
He could still hear her voice downstairs — not the words, just the sound of it, the ongoing quality of someone who had more to say and was saying it to whoever was still in the entrance hall. His sisters' voices underneath.
He stood very still as he tried to think.
