Her Last Secret

I liked her better when she was old and on her own. She hated company, and no one called. She wasn’t the mother I remembered; she was better and worse, as I was. After her surgery, she stayed in a nursing home deteriorating. Her apartment was sold to pay for her care. When she died we emptied the place, there was not much to keep, no photographs or mementos. One kitchen cabinet was full of unopened blood pressure tablets, hundreds. She preferred to drink. If she had confided in me I would have told her that despite the warnings, she could have done both, like I do, but we were never that close.