Kennedy Davies sat in the first seat of the row of white plastic chairs along the back wall of Wash ‘N’ Fold scrolling aimlessly on her phone. Burning an hour and a half in a laundromat under the fluorescent lights in the bleach and dryer-sheet scented air was not a fun time, but after the last few weeks she had nothing clean left to wear. It was laundry day out of sheer necessity. This place happened to be around the corner from her apartment, which was good since she had so much to do, she needed both her shopping trolley and a hiking backpack to get her clothes here.

Her apartment and the ‘Fold’ were in the part of Boston too close to the airport and too far from anything cool to be desirable. Her mother had picked it “You want to pick a place just shabby enough to afford the rent and not get robbed.” Her mother had been the bravest person she’d ever met. She’d walk right up to anyone to ask for directions or where the best Thai food could be found. It was probably a skill she’d had to hone as an ethnographer. Kennedy hadn’t spoken to a soul in two months, and she didn’t see any reason to break her streak.

As it was, there were at least 20 texts waiting for answers she didn’t feel up to giving. “How are you?”  “Call me anytime.” “We’re here for you.” “Let me know if you need anything.” “We’re so sorry.” Then there were the voicemails. Most of those were from her Great-aunts in Coventry. Ever since the funeral they called regularly, and she watched each call go to voicemail. It wasn’t that she didn’t like them, she did. Their house and the marsh it overlooked were where she’d spent a few happy summers.

It was the inertia. The counselor she’d seen twice had explained that the shock of a sudden death could last for months. It could leave you stuck in survival mode, unable to heal. Sitting there flipping through Instagram and seeing her friends’ posts from graduation, the one she’d missed, drove that point home all too well. Instead of crossing the stage and picking up her Master’s diploma, she was sitting in a laundromat waiting for her month’s worth of dirty clothes to be done so she could go back to the apartment, sit on her couch and rot.

She sighed audibly before she remembered that she was not alone. A mom holding her baby was a few seats down and she was side-eyeing her. Kennedy guessed she was assessing her for criminal behavior. Truth was, she was so out of clean clothing that she’d been forced to wear a bridesmaid dress she had at the back of her closet and a white, cotton shrug that definitely didn’t match. She almost laughed out loud thinking of how batty she probably appeared, but laughing at herself would seal the deal.

If she was being honest with herself, her mental stability was probably in question. The dryer stopped at last, and she got up. Pulling her clothes out, she stuffed them into the hiking backpack. Her trolley was already full of the first load she’d folding while waiting on this one. Hosting the pack on her shoulder, she steered the trolley out the door and into the cool air of the afternoon. It was May and the light breeze was filled with the promise of summer.

Walking down the sidewalk and around the corner she dug for her keys, which were hidden just out of reach deep in her pocket. Her apartment was three flights up, and currently the only exercise she really got. It wasn’t ideal, but it was affordable. For a two-bedroom in the city, it was downright cheap. It was decorated the way her mother had liked it, and the way Kennedy had left it – Spartan.

Soft-white walls and dark-stained wood floors were the perfect blank canvas. Most of the furniture was modern and not especially comfortable, but there was one soft chair that was hers alone. It was covered in gold velvet. When she was little, she had thought that it looked fit for a princess. It was an old friend, one of the few pieces of furniture that made the cut whenever she and her mom had moved from place to place.

Once inside, she headed to the bedroom and dumped out on the bed with the idea of folding the clothes. Her room was the smaller of the two bedrooms, with soft blue walls and a window directly beside the bed. The view from the window was not inspiring, but at least it didn’t face a wall. In the morning the rising sun would shine right through the glass and onto her bed. This was handy since she spent a good portion of her time reading which no one who saw the room would doubt since one whole wall was taken up by book-stuffed shelves.

Books had been her mom’s one exception to the ban on clutter. To Meredith Davies books were friends and comforters. She’d had a large collection and allowed Kennedy to read as many as she wanted. Her mom had taught her the wonders of the library, encouraging her to bring home a stack of books every time they’d go. Books were the friends her nomadic childhood had often lacked.

Staring down at the clothes the motivation to fold faded quickly. Coffee. This meant she needed coffee. In the kitchen she brewed a pot, poured herself a cup and sat in her favorite chair looking out the window at the street below as the light began to fade. The street grew louder as people got off from work and returned home or out, meeting up, laughing. Kennedy had no plans for tonight. Truth was, she had no plans for anything, ever.

You are not in a great place. The thought rose unbidden. Kennedy knew that she was hiding from life. She was breathing in and out, walking, eating, working when she had to, but she was not living. She was still stuck in that moment just before Christmas when the cops came to the door and her world fell apart.

In her chair watching life go on outside was safe. Watching her favorite shows on her laptop, scrolling her phone, she could pretend that the life she knew was over. Sitting there, watching the street come to life, she registered the deep sense of unease that was always there now, sitting in her stomach. A distant alarm bell rang, warning that there was something dangerous in her inertia.

Her cell rang and she jumped. Pulling it out she saw the name of one of her best friends, Faith. She was the one person who truly understood her and knew everything there was to know about her: the good and the bad. Faith was exactly the friend she needed right now; empathetic, outgoing, and patient. But Kennedy put the phone down on the windowsill and waited while the call went to voicemail like the half a dozen before.

A notification popped up with a message, but she dismissed it and saw another voicemail there from her other persistent callers, her great-aunts.

Kennedy’s head fell back against the chair as her eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling. The despair that lurked behind her thoughts slowly seeped in. There was no point in trying to stop the tears when they came, giving in had become almost a ritual and sometimes with them came peace. Tonight, it was worse. Her mind wasn’t content to leave her to weep, it wanted her to suffer. She tried to think of something happy or blank it all out. It was too late. The movie started to play in her mind again, the one she tried so hard to banish.

The cops at her door, the ride to Mass General, her mother on the gurney, so pale.

“Please,” she said aloud to no one. “Please.” She said again softly. She didn’t know to whom she was pleading, but her heart was crying out, a plea for help, for peace. She’d give anything to have just a taste of oblivion where she could be safe from her own head. Curling onto her side she tried to remember her mother living, her mother laughing, but it didn’t help. It never did.

She’d been angry. The food had sat for too long while she waited to hear the familiar jingle of her mother’s keys at the door. Eventually she helped herself to dinner and flipped on the TV leaving the rest to get cold Serves her right. By the time she began to feel the prickle of worry overtake her resentment it was past nine. Calls to her cell went to voicemail. Calls to the office went unanswered. Never this late. Concern turned into dread.

The cops came to her door and fulfilled every panicky scenario running through her mind. Not just fulfilled, exceeded. They took her to MGH and she stood in the bright lights of the ER facing a gurney with the body of her mother lying impossibly still with eyes closed on the world for good. The intubation tube from the paramedics was still in her mouth, they hadn’t taken it out yet. Mercifully they had a sheet draped up to her chin. Kennedy knew what was under that sheet. She had already been given the facts by the cops; your mom was shot in the stomach- bled out on the floor – dead.

The cop who brought her there was speaking, but she couldn’t hear a thing. There was a roaring in her ears and her head was stuffed with cotton. It stayed like that for days as life whirled around her. She made the arrangements like she was told. She called who she had to, and she signed, signed what seemed like a hundred papers. All these weighty decisions and she made them on auto pilot.

It was only broken when she received her mother’s possessions from the police. They returned her purse, her wallet…and her keys. The jingling sound of the keys sliding around the Tiffany’s ring was such a familiar, comforting sound, a sound of her childhood. The jingle of her mom’s keys in the lock on their apartment door had meant mom was home and Kennedy wouldn’t be alone anymore. Those keys were the last thing her mother had held in her hand.

She lost it, weeping in deep sobs, the hardest she’d cried. Having them back was kind of like holding her mother’s hand, touching her. Those keys now sat on her counter. It felt stupid, but she couldn’t get rid of them, the mundane little objects infused with unintended meaning. She’d brought them to the funeral, thinking she’d stick them in the casket, or toss them in the grave, but she couldn’t.

She stood there on the fake grass rugs at the edge of the grave for so long the cemetery workers began to appear. The man from the funeral home waved them off from his position beside her, but at a respectful distance. He stood like a sentinel in his black overcoat. She appreciated the gesture, but she knew that soon enough the workers would come and move the dirt to bury the remains of the person who mattered most in her life.

Safe in her apartment the memory finally faded. Curled up in her chair the tears fell freely, but they were more than the loss. It was helplessness, fear, loneliness, guilt. It swirled around her and shut out her senses like wind-swept rain in a gale. The storm took over and she cried for her mother, for herself, for all of it.