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.

In the mornings we drank coffee on the porch while the neighborhood came awake. Delivery trucks. Dog walkers. The woman across the street who watered her ferns in a satin robe and house slippers as if performing a ceremony. We went to a bookstore one afternoon and a farmer’s market another. I walked more than I expected to, the warmth loosening my hip and the flat streets forgiving what the hills back home would not. My sister’s city held me without asking anything from me. That turned out to be its own kind of medicine.

Sometimes we talked about family. Sometimes we did not.