Clara gripped the edge of the counter.
“I sat beside Mom in hospice,” she said. “She kept asking if she had failed him. If she missed signs. If she should have made him see a doctor sooner.”
I closed my eyes.
There were wounds I had expected.
This one I had not.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s simple.”
“It doesn’t need to be simple for it to hurt.”
“No,” I said softly. “It doesn’t.”
Clara turned away, pressing both hands over her face.
I rose and went to her.
For a second, she stiffened. Then she leaned into me, and we stood together in the small kitchen, two sisters holding the weight of a father returned and a mother who could not be told.
“I’m angry,” Clara said into my shoulder.
“You’re allowed.”
“I missed him.”
