I stood by the counter for a full minute, listening to the drip of the kitchen faucet and the distant sound of a speedboat on the lake. The pain in my back was a steady, warm pressure now, a reminder of every time I had lost my footing on these old pine floors.
The living room had the old cream-colored Monopoly board on the coffee table, three of its wooden houses missing from the green pile in the center.
I sat on the edge of the sofa, trying not to let my spine touch the cushions because the heat in my lower back had turned into a dull, throbbing ache that made my legs feel heavy.
Caroline, my aunt, sat opposite me in the green armchair, holding her phone tightly in both hands as she watched me try to adjust my position. She always held her phone that way when she was visiting us, as if it were a shield against the rest of the house.
“You are sitting like you are ninety, Olivia,” Caroline said, her voice direct and brief. “Did you hurt yourself carrying those groceries in from the car?”
“It is just a little stiff,” I said, pausing to catch my breath before I spoke. “It will go away once I stretch.”
Susan, my other aunt, folded her arms and tilted her head, her sharp eyes scanning my face from the other end of the couch. She had always been the one to ask the questions my parents tried to laugh off at Sunday dinners.
“How long has it been hurting like that?” Susan asked slowly.
“Since yesterday,” I said, looking down at the worn Monopoly board to avoid her gaze. “I think I slept on it wrong.”
“Your father said you had a fall last week at your apartment,” Susan said, her voice dropping to a quieter register that did not carry toward the kitchen. “Is that true?”
“I tripped on the rug,” I said, though my fingers clenched in my lap until my knuckles turned white. “It was nothing.”
Caroline did not look away, her fingers tightening on the edge of her phone until her knuckles matched mine.
“You never used to trip this much when you were little, Olivia,” Caroline said. “And yet every time I visit, you have a new bruise.”
