Months later, my mother came home.
We sat at my kitchen table drinking coffee, and I finally told her what the funeral had done to me. She listened without defending herself.
“I would do it again,” she said softly. “But I am sorry for the pain.”
“I know,” I said.
And I did.
I still keep the brass key from Unit 16 in a dish on my dresser.
Sometimes I look at it and remember the cold weight of it in my hand beside that grave.
My mother’s choices were not simple.
