That almost made it worse.
“She talked about that a lot,” my aunt said.
“How busy all of you were.”
All of you.
Her children.
The people she had spent decades organizing her life around.
When we were young, she had never seemed too busy for us.
If I woke sick in the middle of the night, she appeared before I finished calling her name.
If I forgot something at school, she found a way to bring it.
If I needed money, advice, food, a ride, clean clothes, or simply someone to listen, somehow there was always room in her day.
I had grown up believing that availability was simply part of who she was.
I never asked what she had postponed to give it to me.
Now she was older, and I had begun treating five minutes of my time like something she needed to earn.
I placed the phone back on the table.
“Why didn’t she say anything?”
My aunt gave me a look I will never forget.
“She did.”
I frowned.
“When?”
“Every time she called.”
That sentence stayed in the room between us.
I wanted to defend myself.
I wanted to say she never told me she was lonely.
She never said, “I miss you so badly that I taught myself a technology I don’t understand just to see your face.”
She never said, “Please don’t sound irritated when I call.”
She never said, “I keep the phone beside my bed because I’m afraid I’ll miss you.”
But my aunt was right.
My mother had said it.
She had simply used different words.
Can you hear me now, my son?
I just wanted to see you.
Nothing.
I just called.
We’ll talk another day.
They had sounded ordinary when I heard them.
Now they sounded like things I should have understood.
My mother stirred in the bed.
I instinctively stepped closer.
Her eyes opened slowly.
When she saw me, she smiled.
“You came.”
Two words.
No complaint about how long it had been.
No mention of missed calls.
No punishment.
Just surprise and happiness that I was standing there.
“Yeah, Mom.”
My voice almost broke.
She pushed herself upright.
“Did you eat?”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
Of course that was her first question.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, Mom.”
She looked toward the phone in my hand.
