C23 Twenty three

Alexis stood frozen in the doorway, the room suddenly too small, too suffocating. She had half a mind to dismiss her mother's words as the ramblings of a woman who had spent more time with a bottle than reality. But the look in her mother’s eyes—a look she'd never seen before—stopped her.

"You don't believe me?" her mother rasped, her voice hoarse from the strain. She clutched Suzy tighter