I kept finding reasons to be short with her. The way she set the table. The way she laughed at David’s jokes. Little things that added up over thirty years until it felt normal to keep her at a distance.

She never pushed back. Just kept showing up for David and for me when I needed it.

Last month she stayed over because the guest room was closer to the hospital after one of my checkups. She left the journal in the drawer. I told myself I was just looking for a pen when I opened it. That was a lie I told myself right there in the room.

The entry from the day after Frank died was only a few lines. She wrote that she didn’t know how to help me. Said she had tried everything else. Then she asked God to change my heart because she couldn’t. She ended it with “Please let her know I love her family even if she never loves me back.”

I read it twice. Then I put the journal in my purse and drove over here. Now I’m standing at her kitchen door with it in my hands and I can see her inside washing dishes. David is at work. It’s just her.

I don’t know what I’m going to say when she opens the door. I don’t even know if she’ll want to hear it. But I can’t keep pretending I never saw those words. The soup is still warm on the stove. I can smell it from here.

My fingers rested on the edge of the screen door but I couldn’t bring myself to push it open. The journal cover was soft and a little curled at the corners from being opened so many times.

I could smell the soup through the screen, that same chicken broth with the carrots cut small and the parsley floating on top. My stomach turned even though I had not eaten much that morning.

I kept thinking about the words she wrote the day after Frank died. Soften my heart. It was like she saw straight through me and still asked God to fix what I would not fix myself. Most women would have stopped coming around after the first few years of cold shoulders and wrong names on cards.

There was that Easter when I told her the ham was too salty. She just smiled and said she would try a different recipe next year. David gave me a look across the table. “Mom,” he said, quiet like he did not want her to hear. I ignored him and kept eating. I told myself she needed to learn how things were done in this family.