Saturday I brought her favorite blanket from home. The one with the faded roses on it. She ran her fingers over the edge and smiled a little. We did not talk about the form for a while.

Instead she asked me if I remembered the time she taught me to make biscuits when I was twelve. I told her I still could not get the edges right. She laughed once, soft.

Then her face changed.

“Katherine means well,” she said. “But she did not sit with me after the last one. You did.”

I did not know what to say to that. I just held her hand.

Sunday after lunch the nurse came to check vitals and left us alone again. Mama was drifting in and out. Every time she opened her eyes she looked at the tray first. The form had a pen clipped to it now. I do not remember who put it there.

I picked it up once and put it back down. My chest felt tight. I kept hearing Katherine’s voice from the phone call. “We cannot be the ones to stop fighting.”

But then I heard Mama again too. “Carol, no more.”

Around four o’clock the light started to change in the room. Mama woke up enough to shift a little. She looked right at me.

“Did you sign it yet?” she asked.

I shook my head.

She closed her eyes again. Her breathing stayed even.

I sat there another hour. The house was quiet. No one else was coming until morning. I thought about all the times I had told families the same thing I was telling myself now. Sometimes the kindest thing is to let it be.

At quarter to six I slid the form off the tray and onto my lap.

The signature line looked longer than it needed to be. I wrote my name slow so it would be clear. Then I dated it.

Mama did not wake up when I set it back on the tray. I left the pen next to it so the nurse would see it first thing.

Katherine lands at nine tomorrow. I will meet her at the airport like we planned. I have not figured out what I will say when she asks if I took care of everything.

The form is still on the tray. My name is right there at the bottom.

The paper felt heavier than it should have when I picked it up again. I ran my thumb along the edge and it made that soft crinkle sound. Mama’s oxygen hissed steady beside the bed. I could still feel where her hand had been on my wrist, the spot a little warm from her touch. The room smelled like the lemon lotion I rubbed on her arms earlier and the clean sheets from the morning change. I do not even know why that lotion smell stuck with me so strong but it did.