My Mother Told Me To Give Up My Room Until I Left Quietly

she opened a fresh notebook and uncapped a pen. She walked through the house slowly and quietly, room by room, and she made a list. Not of her personal belongings. An inventory of every object in the house that she had paid for. The microwave. The coffee maker. The pots and pans. The sofa. The fifty-inch television she had bought so her mother would continue reading …