I looked at the photograph.
“She never said she didn’t know Miriam.”
Clara looked up.
“That is a very lawyerly distinction.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you angry?”
I thought about it.
“No.”
That surprised me.
A month earlier, another hidden fact would have felt like an attack.
Now I mostly felt tired of guessing.
“I want the whole story,” I said.
Clara nodded.
“So do I.”
We drove home together.
Mother was in the sunroom.
She had grown weaker that week.
Not suddenly.
Her illness moved in increments.
A little less appetite.
A little more sleep.
A few more steps requiring help.
Ruth, her nurse, had warned me that decline could look ordinary from the outside.
That was perhaps the hardest part.
You expected life-changing moments to announce themselves.
Most did not.
Mother was wrapped in a blue blanket, listening to music.
She smiled when she saw us.
“You came together.”
