Both offered to spend more time in Ohio after we left.
Patricia hated it.
“I don’t need my daughters rearranging their lives,” she told Mark.
He looked at me when she said it.
Apparently, rearranging your life became unreasonable once one of the daughters had to do it.
Our final weeks vanished into boxes, paperwork, farewell dinners, and the discovery that Mark and I somehow owned four slow cookers.
“Four,” I said, staring at them. “There are two people in this house.”
“One was your mother’s.”
“My mother died seven years ago.”
Mark considered that. “Then I definitely don’t think she needs it back.”
We donated three.
The rest wasn’t as funny.
I cried when I left my coworkers.
Our neighbors brought wine and blueberry pie.
The night before closing, I stood in our empty bedroom, looked at the maple tree we had planted after my mother died, and wondered whether we were making a terrible mistake.
