I wish grief had made me better. More present. More patient. More aware of how lonely she must have been.
It didn’t.
I worked brutal hours. Twelve-hour days were normal. Fourteen-hour days happened more often than I wanted to admit. I lived in a city where rent made no sense, and I was still paying off debt from my father’s medical bills.
Most weeks, I felt like I was running late to my own life.
I called Linda.
I visited.
But not enough.
Never enough.
Then her health began to slip.
At first, it was small things. She tired more quickly. She moved slower. One afternoon, she fell in her kitchen and laughed it off, but I saw the bruise blooming across her arm and went cold.
Continue on the next page:
