"Her name was Eleanor."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"You knew," I said.
"I knew her first name.
That was all." She reached across the table.
I let her take my hand.
"I didn't know she was the woman at your hospice.
I didn't know any of that.
I swear to you."
I believed her.
That was the strangest part.
I looked at her face — the face that had been my mother's face my entire life — and I believed every word.
"She found me," I said.
"She spent forty years looking, and she found me, and she never said a word.
She just let me sit with her.
She let me read to her.
She let me — " My voice broke.
I pressed my hand flat on the table.
"She let me marry her without ever telling me why she wanted it to be me."
My mother's eyes filled.
"Maybe she didn't want to take anything from you," she said softly.
