While I sat at home being proud and stubborn and stupid. While I put unsent cards in a drawer instead of just driving the fifteen minutes.

She never stopped waiting. That’s the thing that won’t let go of me.

She was a teenager when I told her my job was done, and she’s a grown woman now, and she still pulls out that chair.

I know Birch Street. I could find the house. The neighbor even told me which one, the one with the blue shutters.

I’ve driven past it twice now. Both times at night, so I could see if the light was on.

It was. Both times. That little porch light, just burning away, waiting for somebody who told her she wasn’t needed.

I haven’t knocked yet. I want you to know that. I’m not writing this to tell you I fixed it, because I haven’t.

I’ve got one of those cards in my coat pocket right now. The one that just says, “Love, Mama.” I’ve had it in there for three days.

I keep telling myself I’ll go tomorrow. That I’ll walk up those steps and knock and finally sit in that seat she’s been saving.

But then I think about what I’ll say. How do you explain fourteen years of silence to a person who set you a place at the table every single night anyway?

I don’t have the words for that. I’m a 62-year-old woman and I don’t have the words.

So for now I just drive by. And I look at the light. And I sit in my car on Birch Street with a card in my pocket, working up the nerve to do the one thing I should’ve done fourteen years ago.

The light’s still on. I keep telling myself that means it’s not too late. I just have to be brave enough to find out.