Joan was trying to find the right word. “It’s a pointy thing.”
“A pen?” Amelia stirred honey into her tea, the sweetness cutting through the bitterness of sleepless nights and bills.
“Right, yes. That’s it.” Joan glanced at the pen in her hand. “Tea, dear?”
“Mine is good.” She couldn’t quite pinpoint when the honey had disappeared from her own pantry — it had been a constant in her carefree youth.
“How is William?”
Although she and her mom spoke somewhat regularly by phone, it was good to be back in her childhood home. “We divorced three years ago.” Or, maybe it was just good to be far from her own.
“Oh yes, so sorry. I forgot again.”
“Do you need help writing the note?” Amelia found it strange how only now she was recognizing the dissipating tension she had been wallowing in for two decades.
Joan stared at her pen and then the paper…for a long time.
Amelia sipped her tea and quietly observed the kitchen. It hadn’t changed in the last five years since her last cross-country visit — when her mom planned Dad’s funeral with sharp precision.
Joan turned and looked out the window. Spring was in bloom. Yellow and white daffodils highlighted the edge of the yard. The maples were showing their first leaves. “Was I going to write to your father, or…review the will?”
“I think you were going to write Sabrina a birthday note. She’s turning 21.” Through her mother’s condition, Amelia recognized she had finally achieved something positive: more patience. It was better than nothing.
Joan seemed lost in thought but eventually put down the pen before turning to look directly at Amelia. Her piercing blue eyes sparkled and radiated such…life.
Amelia became mesmerized. She had never been so captivated by a gaze. There was a sense of peace that pervaded the whole room. She felt so…present. It was as if all she ever knew about her mother was suddenly lacking and only now somehow expanded.
Joan reached for Amelia’s hand, her touch steady, as if seeing through Amelia’s calm facade to the ache beneath. Her voice was soft, “Thank you for being here, dear. I love you more than you’ll ever know.”
Amelia set down her tea, her gaze fixed on the honey-smeared spoon, and began to cry as if her mother’s words had unlocked a simplicity and warmth she’d forgotten she could feel.
by George Alger
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