No family. No flowers. No one in the waiting room. Just me and Jaylen and a nurse named Sheila who happened to hear me through a wall.

I didn’t call my mother.

The next three years were the hardest of my life. Shelter first.

Then a shared room at a transitional housing program. Then a studio apartment the size of a walk-in closet. Then a job at a FedEx distribution center, third shift, $14.50 an hour. Then a better apartment. Then a different job. Then Jaylen started Head Start.

I did every bit of it alone. I am not saying that for sympathy. I’m saying it because it’s a fact and it matters for what comes next.

Two months ago my Aunt Yvonne called. She’s my mother’s sister. She lives in Collierville. She’s the only family member who kept in touch with me.

“Danielle, I need to tell you something. Your mama has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. They’re saying months, not years.”

I didn’t say anything. I was standing in my kitchen making Jaylen’s lunch. PB&J, Goldfish crackers, apple juice box. Tuesday routine.

“She’s asking to see Jaylen. She’s asking to meet her grandson.”

I held the phone. I looked at the kitchen counter. The bread. The peanut butter jar. Jaylen’s Spider-Man lunchbox.

“Danielle? You there?”

“I’m here.”

“What should I tell her?”

I thought about the parking lot. The YMCA bathroom. The Dollar Tree applesauce. The eleven hours of labor. Sheila Watkins.

“Tell her no.”

Yvonne was quiet for a long time. Then she said, “Are you sure?”

“She had six years to meet him, Aunt Yvonne. She had every single day for six years. She picked none of them. Dying doesn’t give her a deadline on things she chose not to do when she was healthy.”