They stood a long time without speaking.
Then my mother said, in a voice I had never heard from her, “I was cruel to you for six years. I told myself it was love for my son.”
“It was never love. It was fear that someone would be loved more.”
Emily put one hand on her arm.
“Come meet your grandchildren,” she said.
That was all.
It was enough.
My mother cr*ed for twenty minutes with Ruby in her arms and Owen pulling her pearls.
Pam Whitley retired in July.
A week later, she opened the Wednesday clinic at Grace Haven as a full-time practice, with a waiting room, two cots, and a sign that read NO ONE IS TURNED AWAY.
She told me she had finally started sl*eping through the night.
Ray Dalton sent me a bill for eleven dollars and forty cents, for gas.
I paid it twice.
