The things that follow us | Part I

On Now: What was supposed to be a 911 call to help Mom ended with her in the back of a police car.

I was upstairs with the baby on my chest listening to his sleep sounds and classical lullabies. My husband wasn’t home and Mom was in her bed downstairs recovering. Or so I thought. 

Dishes clanking and pots sliding around on the stove penetrated the safe bubble of sleep we were in upstairs. It was dinnertime. I thought Perry was back home, making lasagna and burrata Caprese with his mouth-watering garlic bread. I wondered why he was being so loud. He knew the baby was sleeping. I thought maybe he had his headphones on, listening to a video on music theory as he so often does. The scent of food cooking permeated the nursery. Then the scent of burning.