Beside it was the black duffel.
“Mom!” Ben cried.
Diane was standing.
Diane turned and grabbed the wheelchair with both hands.
I looked at the table.
My mother’s wedding necklace lay on a folded handkerchief.
Beside it was an old photograph of her holding me as a baby.
My mother’s wedding necklace lay on a folded handkerchief.
Then I saw what was inside the duffel.
Walking shoes.
Folded clothes.
A folder marked REHABILITATION ASSESSMENT, with an appointment date written across the front.
And a small spiral notebook.
I saw what was inside the duffel.
I picked it up.
The first pages contained crooked, shaky handwriting.
Dates.
Short sentences.
I turned another page.
Then another.
One entry said Diane had spoken her first full sentence five weeks earlier.
I picked it up.
Another recorded the day she’d stood beside her bed.
Three weeks ago.
There were more entries after that.
Diane had been keeping track.
