No matter how much she protested, everyone insisted she play her role. Each time the director said, “Action,” the crew stared at her, expecting her to know what to do. She’d always had a gift for memorizing her lines but she’d never been given a script. She liked to break down a scene and know her part before she stepped in front of the camera, but she didn’t know her part. Improvisation made her freeze and her insides felt stuck in ice. She woke once and, for several terrifying seconds, she didn’t recognize her surroundings. Then the sharp edges of grief cut into her heart as her gaze took in the shape of her mother’s old white dressing table and the outlines of perfume bottles and the snow globe she’d made in the third grade out of a Mason jar and glitter. She buried her nose in her mother’s pillow and breathed in the scent of flowery shampoo. When she closed her eyes again, she dreamed of soft loving hands and pink magnolias. She dreamed of Mamaw Roz and her house in Summerville, where she’d spent Christmases and Thanksgivings and where she stayed when her mother fell into depression.
