I gave them his blue blanket, the raggedy one that still smelled like Mom’s room. “He likes this by the door,” I told them, and my voice broke right in the middle of it. Mrs. Henderson took it out of my hands and just nodded.

Didn’t make me stand there and explain myself. “He’ll be loved here,” she said. “I promise you that.” And I believed her. I did. I just couldn’t make believing her feel like it made the whole thing okay.

So that’s what I was carrying when Mom found my hand last night. The feeling that I’d quit on her. That I’d packed up her comfort in a blue blanket and driven it away. And then she went and turned the whole thing upside down with one little sentence about Ray waiting at the door.

It’s almost five o’clock now as I write this. I’m back in the recliner with one ear open, the way I’ve been for seven months. The dog bed’s still over there in the corner. I keep meaning to fold it up and put it in the closet, and I keep not doing it. A few minutes ago I caught myself looking at the front door. Just for a second. Waiting on something I can’t name.

I left the bed where it is. Seems to me somebody in this house ought to still be allowed to wait.