Dozens of them.
Maybe hundreds.
Messy, uneven sketches taped up with pieces of white medical tape. Crayon marks ran across the paper like storms of color.
Stick figures with giant heads.
A tall man.
A smaller boy.
And next to them, a woman with long hair.
Above every drawing, written in shaky letters, was the same word.
“Mom.”
My throat tightened.
For illustrative purposes only
I walked closer, noticing how the drawings changed slightly from one to the next. In some, the boy was holding the woman’s hand. In others, they stood in
front of a house. One showed the three figures beneath a huge yellow sun.
All of them labeled the same way.
Mom.
I hadn’t even noticed my husband standing behind me.
“You came back,” he said quietly.
I turned to him. He looked exhausted—eyes hollow, shoulders slumped like he hadn’t slept in days.
