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.

The days in between passed the way hard days often do, marked not by revelation but by tasks. I reorganized the linen closet. I repotted the plants on the back porch, though the wind was still cold enough that I had to wear a cardigan while I worked. I walked the neighborhood in the afternoons, slow and careful because of my hip, moving past split-levels and colonials with damp mulch around the flower beds and basketball hoops over the garages. The crabapple trees on Maple Lane were budding. Somebody two streets over had put out an American flag that snapped in the wind hard enough to sound like cloth being shaken. In front of the elementary school the crossing guard I’d known for years lifted two gloved fingers in greeting as I passed, and for a second I had the odd, aching awareness that parts of my life had remained steady only because I had not looked too hard at the ones that were not.