“Mama, I…”
“Shh.” She patted my cheek. “I know what I know.”
I did not understand then. I told myself it was just the dementia, just words drifting loose.
“She left something for you.”
I drove home that night thinking about my own mother, about how rarely I sat with her the way I sat with Rosie. I made a promise to do better. To call more. To stay longer.
Two days later, my phone rang while I was loading boxes onto the truck.
It was the nursing home director.
“Jeremy. Rosie passed away in her sleep last night.”
I set the box down on the wet pavement.
“And she left something for you.”
I opened the envelope with shaking fingers.
***
Three days after the funeral, I sat in Director Helen’s office, staring at a sealed envelope on her desk. I had braced for grief, not paperwork.
“She knew you weren’t her son,” Helen said gently.
I looked up. “What?”
“From the first visit, Jeremy. She told me a week in. She asked me to keep her secret.”
