“You visit her a lot,” she said.
“She’s my mother.”
Margaret tilted her head. “She’s the sweetest soul here. You’re lucky.”
Something in the way she said it made me look away.
I started skipping lunch to make the drive across town.
Tim called that Friday. His voice was clipped.
“You don’t need to go midweek, Jeremy. This is just a job. Keep it simple.”
“She gets lonely.”
“She has dementia. She forgets the second you leave.”
I gripped the phone tighter. “Maybe. But she remembers while I’m there.”
He hung up.
Weeks blurred into months. I started skipping lunch to make the drive across town. I read the newspaper to Rosie. I rubbed her hands when her knuckles ached.
I told myself it was just the dementia, just words drifting loose.
One afternoon she leaned close, her breath shallow, her eyes clearer than I had ever seen them.
“You’re a good man, son,” she said.
I almost broke down right there.
