Renee stood at the bottom of the steps.
She was crying.
“Margaret,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I know, Renee.”
“It’s not about the money,” Renee said. “I swear to God. I’m not sorry because of the money.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry because—”
She stopped.
She looked at the porch. The swing. The sign.
“Because I put that sign in the garage,” she said. “I didn’t even look at it. I just put it on a shelf. Like it was junk.”
She wiped her eyes.
“I put you on a shelf,” she said.
She told me later.
That night. After Daniel took the kids home. After she asked if she could stay for a cup of tea.
We sat at the yellow kitchen table. In the breakfast nook Tomás built. Out of oak.
“My mother is in a memory care facility in Mesa,” Renee said. “She has Alzheimer’s. Early onset. She was diagnosed at sixty-four.”
