had medicine so it wouldn’t.
She nodded like a manager approving a plan.
Then one day, she caught me writing on my yellow legal pad.
“Mama, are you sad when you write about me?”
I hadn’t told her I was writing about her.
I wasn’t sure I had admitted it to myself.
But she had noticed me looking at her over the page.
Kids see everything.
I said, “Sometimes, but mostly I’m glad because it means I get to keep you on paper, too.”
She thought about that.
“Then write
