Her eyes grow wide, but for the first time, I see an inkling of fear in them.
“That was your first warning,” I tell her. “Mother or not, there won’t be a second.”
I step away and sit back on the edge of my desk. She looks up at me with new caution. “You’re right,” she says with a repressed shudder. “You are good at this.”
“You’d do well not to forget it.”
She exhales slowly. “I know… and I’m sorry, son. It’s just…” She raises her eyes to mine. The resentment ebbs and something else takes the forefront. “It’s hard for a woman to find her place in this landscape. I thought I’d found mine.”
I know what she means. I observed it first-hand. My father’s stroke had come out of nowhere. But in the wake of that shock, my mother had found herself in a position that rarely comes around for a wom
