“Lily, promise me something.”
“What?”
“You stay with me tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
That was when I became genuinely frightened.
Because my mother was not a woman who frightened easily.
She was the person who killed spiders with a shoe.
She was the person who once drove through a thunderstorm because she refused to let a grocery delivery sit outside.
She was the person who could stare down a dentist after a painful procedure and say,
“Are you sure that’s all you’ve got?”
But now she looked like she was trying not to cry.
So I promised.
On the drive home, Mom barely spoke.
The car was unusually quiet.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Is Grandpa sick?”
Her hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because you keep looking at him like something bad is going to happen.”
She didn’t answer.
“Is he sick?”
