When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I'd gone with my husband to visit the graves.
This time, I threw down the spatula. I didn't touch the stove. I walked straight out the door and went to get dinner.
But when I came back, my husband's brother and his wife were still lying in a pool of blood.
——
I opened my eyes, and that final breath was still trapped in my chest, burning its way up my throat.
Above me, the soot-blackened ceiling beams of my in-laws' kitchen came into focus. The flame on the stove hissed and crackled.
This was twenty years ago. The day I'd come back to the countryside with my husband for Memorial Day. I was in the middle of cooking the holiday feast for his family.
Every scene from before I died played through my mind, and a chill crawled from the soles of my feet to the crown of my skull.
When I was alive, I was the fool who never complained, who did everything she was told. Dead, I was nothing more than a stepping stone to their fortune.
Not this time. Never again.
I slammed the spatula onto the stovetop and turned for the door.
"You ungrateful woman! Have you lost your mind?!"