We were extremely close.
We talked several times a week about ordinary things.
She worried that I didn’t eat properly.
I worried that she spent too many hours working in her garden.
My father had died six years earlier from a sudden heart attack in his sleep.
Losing him had brought Mom and me even closer.
I helped her sort through paperwork, insurance policies, bank accounts, and all the administrative details that come with losing a spouse after forty years of marriage.
During that time, I learned all kinds of things about my parents that I hadn’t known before.
Sweet things.
Funny things.
Small details about their marriage.
By the end of it, I genuinely believed there were no major family secrets left.
I was wrong.
The truth finally came out because of my mother’s knee.
She had struggled with pain for years, always minimizing it because that was what she did with anything involving herself.
