“I spent my whole life believing my mother chose to leave me,” he said.
“And now?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Now I know she spent thirty years trying to find her way back.”
Every night before Mia went upstairs, she stopped outside Gladys’s bedroom.
“Do you need anything, Grandma?”
Sometimes Gladys asked for water. Sometimes she asked where Kyle was. Other nights, she did not remember Mia at all.
But Mia always kissed her forehead before switching off the light.
Whenever I passed through the kitchen, I remembered the first night I came home—the pillow on the floor, the thin blanket, and the glass of water placed beside my daughter.
At first, I had believed Mia had been neglected.
Instead, she had willingly given up her bed so a frightened woman would not wake up alone.
Gladys never completely stopped wandering, and the years that had been stolen could never truly be returned. Kyle could not recover the birthdays, holidays, or ordinary days he had missed with his mother.
