Why didn’t you just tell her no? Why didn’t you say, Michelle, I am your mother, and I will not be charged admission?
I could have. I had the words right there behind my teeth.
But a no at your daughter’s kitchen table turns into a fight. And a fight turns into things said that can’t be swept back up off the floor. I have one child. I had already buried my husband. I was not going to risk the only other person on this earth who remembers Dale’s voice over a sheet of notebook paper.
So I said, “Thank you, honey. That’s a real offer, and I can see you two worked on it. Let me think on it.”
Michelle let out a breath. “Okay. But, Mom, you’ve got to be out of the farmhouse by the first. So.”
“I know when I have to be out.”
