Three months passed. No calls. No messages. I told myself she was angry, that she needed space. I was busy anyway—new job, new city, new life. Guilt flickered occasionally, but I pushed it aside. She was strong. She always had been.
When I finally returned to town for a conference, I decided to visit her. No warning. I imagined a tense but manageable reunion—maybe some awkward silence, maybe forgiveness.
What I walked into instead shattered me.
The door was unlocked. The house felt wrong the moment I stepped inside. Too quiet. Too empty. Furniture gone. Walls bare where photos used to hang.
I followed a faint sound to the living room—and then my legs nearly gave out.
She was on the floor.
Pale. Shaking. Her breath came in shallow gasps, pain etched into every line of her face. She looked impossibly small, like the strength that once filled her had been drained away piece by piece.
I dropped to my knees, calling her name, my hands trembling as I tried to help her sit up.
She smiled weakly. Even then.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” she whispered.
At the hospital, the truth came out in fragments. A chronic illness. Years of symptoms ignored. Medication she couldn’t afford consistently. Appointments she skipped so she could send me money instead.
Money I had always assumed came from savings.
“There was never any inheritance,” she admitted quietly. “Mom didn’t leave us anything. I just didn’t want you to feel trapped. I wanted you to study freely.”
The furniture. The jewelry. Even our mother’s old things—sold off one by one.
For years, she had been shrinking her life so I could expand mine.
Continued on next page:
