I took money to pretend I was an old woman’s son because I needed to keep my own mother alive. Then the woman I was lying to started holding my hand like I belonged to her, and after she passed away, the nursing home told me she had left behind one final request just for me.
The dashboard clock read 11:47 when I pulled my delivery van up to the curb outside my mother’s apartment. Rain blurred the streetlights into long yellow smears. I sat there for a moment,
