An annihilating scream shook with the beat of a death rattle. It came from downstairs. It was my mother. My mother never screamed. A brow-beaten housewife who Dad terrorized into a zombie. Her owl eyes rarely blinked anymore. I descend. Maybe she jumped, or better yet, plunged a kitchen knife through his gut. Step by step. Whimpering echoes from her room. She is rocking, teetering on the edge. Marble eyes stare into a place I never want to go. “Mom?” The phone is off the hook in her lap. “Mom?” The phone starts beeping. She speaks. “My sister killed herself.”