“I’m okay, Mama.”
“Are you sleeping enough, Timmy? You always pushed yourself too hard.”
Nobody had asked me those things in years. Not since my dad left. Not since my mom got sick.
I sat there for an hour, mostly listening. Rosie talked about a garden I had never seen and a dog I had never owned, and I nodded along as if it all belonged to me.
When I stood to leave, she squeezed my hand.
“Come back soon.”
“I will, Mama.”
As I turned toward the door, I
