Linda sat down across from me while I looked at it. The first line said “Remind Helen the church needs pies for the sale on Saturday.” It had a line through it. The second one said “Ask if she wants the rest of those tomatoes from the garden.” Crossed off too.

The third said “Tell her the new doctor gave me some pills that actually help the hip.” Crossed off.

The fourth line had no mark through it. It was written in the same careful print but the pen had stopped halfway through the sentence. It read “Tell Helen I talked to her boy last week and told him”

Linda looked at me and said “Mama never finished that one. I don’t know what she was going to say after that.”

I read the line three times. My hands started to shake a little on the paper. I asked Linda if she knew anything about Mark. She shook her head and said her mother never mentioned it to her.

I sat there at the table for a long time after Linda left. The house was quiet the way it always was at that hour. I kept seeing Patsy’s face the last time we talked and how she changed the subject so fast when I brought up Mark.

A week later I tried calling my son. The number I had for him was old and it just rang. I left a message but he never called back. Part of me wonders if he still thinks about what Patsy told him that day. I never asked her about it because I thought she was just being kind.

Some mornings I still wake up at 7:15 and reach for the phone out of habit. Then I remember. I look at that notepad sometimes and wonder what else she might have said if the line had stayed open a few more seconds. I guess I will never know for sure.

The thing that stays with me is how she crossed off the small things but left that last line open. It makes me think she had been carrying it for a while. Maybe she meant to tell me sooner and just never found the right morning.

I keep the notepad in the drawer by the phone now. Every so often I take it out and read the fourth line again. It still stops me cold. Patsy was the one person I could tell anything to and it turns out she was keeping something from me too. I do not know what to do with that.

Mark has a family of his own somewhere. I send cards on the holidays but they come back unopened most years. I think about knocking on his door but I never do. The words on that notepad sit there like a door I am afraid to open all the way.