My parents died when I was little, and my grandmother stepped in so completely that people later spoke of her like she’d always been the plan. She wasn’t loud about love, but she was relentless: school forms signed, lunches packed, bills paid on time even when I knew money was tight. When she passed, the house didn’t feel quiet—it felt unplugged, like the power was still on but nothing was running.

On the third day after the funeral, I forced myself into motion and decided to donate her coats.

I opened her closet and that familiar smell hit—mothballs and lavender—so strong it made my eyes sting. I pulled out a winter coat, then another, telling myself I was being practical, telling myself I wasn’t stalling, and that’s when I heard a soft scrape from behind the back wall, the kind of sound you register before your brain catches up.

I stood there holding a coat like it could keep me steady, then pressed my ear to the panel and heard it again—slow, deliberate, not a house creak, not a pipe.

My eyes landed on the closet mirror, which was slightly crooked in a way that felt impossible because my grandmother never left anything crooked; she would straighten a picture frame like it mattered to God.

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