In the First Early Days of My Death by Catherine Hunter

her knee had been, and a sickening ache in her near-empty stomach.
    Rosa hadn’t spoken to Alika yet. She’d wanted to light a candle for Wendy first. Noni watched her mother’s stout body bending to the task, selecting the candle, murmuring the prayer in French.
    â€œI want to be able to tell Alika I’ve done something, at least,” Rosa said. “Then, if we can’t see Wendy, we’ll take him home. Has he eaten anything?”
    â€œNothing. And he hasn’t slept. He worked all night at the studio.”
    â€œThen we’ll go home and cook. He has to eat,” Rosa said. “We all have to keep healthy. Wendy is going to need us.”
    â€œMum,” said Noni. “I think you should know. The doctor says Wendy might not make it.”
    â€œMight not make it? Make what?” Rosa began to walk toward the door, but Noni put a hand on her arm to stop her.
    â€œMum? I mean it. He said it doesn’t look good.”
    Rosa stared at her daughter. “You should know better than to talk like that,” she said. “Didn’t I teach you anything?” But instead of leaving the chapel, she returned to the altar to select another candle.
    As Noni watched her mother’s broad back bending again over the thin flame, she was overcome with tenderness for her, and with a feeling of abandonment. Who would listen to Noni’s fears? Behind her, the chapel door swung open, but no one entered. The door swayed back and forth and then stood still. Noni felt a sudden urge to leave the chapel. It was cold in here, and the silence was suffocating.

    I drifted down to the chapel to look for my mother-in-law, because I thought that at least Rosa, of all people, would believe. But no — there she was, lighting a candle and concentrating so hard on her prayers she couldn’t hear me. I adored Rosa. She was my favourite mother of all, the one I’d hoped to keep forever. But it annoyed me to see her lifting her eyes to the ceiling in supplication, when I was right there beside her. I felt ignored.
    I wished I could leave the building, and the minute I made that wish I discovered how effortless it was. The ground dropped out from under me like a trap door, and I rose as if filled with helium. The air parted before my open arms, buoying me up as if it were water, and I swam, I sailed, I flew through the stained glass window of the chapel, over the forks of the rivers and above the trees. I knew I could keep on rising forever, through the clouds and beyond the sky. The whole earth fell away from me, relieving me of my house, my work, my entire city, even my own name, and for a long moment I floated free of it all, letting the story of my life unravel behind me. But then suddenly I wanted to gather it up again. I wanted to tell someone what had happened to me. It was a sad story, and the sadness pulled me down, back among the rooftops and the lampposts downtown. I could see the traffic in the streets. It was rush hour, everyone going home from work, except for me. I didn’t have a home anymore.
    To comfort myself, I visited all of my mothers — Mrs. Kowalski and Mrs. Keller and Mrs. Richards and even old Mrs. Lamb in the nursing home. Mrs. Lamb was close to the end of her life and she could see me. She smiled and nodded when I entered her room. But she was deaf now, and senile, and hadn’t recognized me for years. I looked in on a few old friends I’d neglected since my marriage. I dropped by the library and listened to my substitute reading the children The Little Mermaid — the Disney version, of all things. I wandered through the city. I eavesdropped. I spied on everyone.
    But it was Evelyn I was really interested in. She was the one who had murdered me.

3
    The Wanderer

    I went over to Evelyn’s apartment and checked to see what she was up to. She was sitting at her kitchen table, wearing a pair of green flannel pyjamas and filing her nails. When she