Two days later, I drove to the nursing home where she now lived. She looked smaller, older, and fragile as she folded towels by the window, but the moment she saw me, her face lit up like nothing had changed. I broke down apologizing for all the years I had wasted hating her.
Yet she never mentioned the house or the sacrifices she made. She simply wrapped her arms around me and whispered, “I’m proud of you. I always was.” And in that moment, after twenty years of silence, I realized the only thing my mother had ever wanted was her son back.
