The familiar smell of her beautiful cooking wafted toward me when I pushed open the door, wrapping me in a blanket of warmth I hadn't realized I'd been missing. Tears sprang in my eyes as my slow steps followed the scent into the kitchen, and there she was- my mother, alive, standing by the oven, pulling out a tray of something delicious. I froze in the doorway, the sight of her so painfully beautiful that it stole my voice. My throat pained.
Taking off the thick mittens, she looked up, startled to see me. "Megs?" My shoulders dropped- it is her. This is so real. Only she called me Megs.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, a smile tugging at her lips, though her voice held a note of concern. "Shouldn't you be studying? We're not paying for you to skip, you know."
Pulling in my lips, I nodded, then smiled through the tears, my heart swelling with joy and sadness all at once. "I know, I just... I needed to come home."
