I stood still on the staircase. I was frozen. My phone was pressed hard to my ear. My fingers ached. My mother's crying came through the phone speaker. It was a raw, sharp sound that filled all the quiet spaces inside me.

Her words came back again and again, getting louder inside my head until everything else faded.

Your father’s dead.

Dead.

I did not move. I did not breathe. The world felt like it was tilting a little, trying to push me over. But I stayed standing.

My mind was blank. But at ...