I had made it very clear that I couldn’t lend any money that month, because I still had to put all my money and emotional strength toward the surgery I was about to undergo, and I kept thinking my daughter-in-law would be understanding and stop there. But just a few minutes later, my phone lit up with a message from her, so cold that I was left stunned, unable to believe what had just appeared before my eyes.

I was standing at the kitchen sink when my son called, rinsing the last of my breakfast dishes while the morning news murmured from the living room in that steady, half-urgent tone local anchors always seem to have, even when they are talking about little more than school board meetings, potholes, and whether the rain coming in off the river might turn to sleet by nightfall. It was a Tuesday in March, gray but not severe, the sort of ordinary morning that disappears from memory almost as soon as it happens. Out front, the forsythia had just begun to bloom in yellow sprays against the fence. My hip was aching in the familiar, deep way it always did when the cold settled into the ground and stayed there. I had slept badly, and I was already counting the weeks to surgery the way other people count down to vacations.

I dried my hands on the dish towel and picked up the phone.

“Mom,” he said.