“That’s all?”
“No.”
His eyes filled.
“He wanted me to turn down my new job, move back here after he was gone, and make sure you didn’t spend the rest of your life caring for everyone except yourself.”
I stared at him.
“He asked you to give up your move?”
“He asked me to become your new supervisor. Call every day. Make sure you ate. Choose where you traveled. Decide when you’d helped other people enough.”
My knees hit the carpet before I realized I’d moved.
Daniel dropped beside me.
“That’s why we fought, Mom.”
“He told me you were going to tell everybody you were fine,” he added. “That you’d organize his funeral, feed everyone afterward, answer every phone call, clean the house, and make yourself useful until nobody noticed you were falling apart.”
I thought about the sympathy-card box I’d nearly carried out of the room five minutes earlier.
