So I asked.
“Do you want help with the buttons?”
“No.”
Five minutes later:
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to cut your food?”
“No.”
After ten minutes:
“Maybe just the chicken.”
We found ways to preserve dignity in tiny pieces.
Her children visited.
But not often.
Daniel usually stayed an hour.
Marcus brought groceries and then spent half the visit answering work calls.
Leah came with beautiful flowers and complained that Margaret’s room smelled like medicine.
Every visit ended with some version of:
“Nora, I don’t know how you do it.”
“You have the patience of a saint.”
“Mom always liked you best anyway.”
That last one was not true.
Margaret had been suspicious of me for years.
She thought I spent too much money on coffee.
She criticized the way I seasoned vegetables.
She once told Ethan:
“She reads too many instructions. A woman ought to know when bread is done by smell.”
