She looked pretty in a way I didn’t remember seeing her, as if something that had had a hold on her had let her go, and she could be different about things. Even about me.

“Sometimes, you know,” she said, “I’ll think about something I did. Just anything. Years ago in Idaho, or last week, even. And it’s as if I’d read it. Like a story. Isn’t that strange?”

“Yes,” I said. And it did seem strange to me because I was certain then what the difference was between what had happened and what hadn’t, and knew I always would be.

“Sometimes,” she said, and she folded her hands in her lap and stared out the little side window of her cabin at the parking lot and the curving row of other cabins. “Sometimes I even have a moment when I completely forget what life’s like. Just altogether.” She smiled. “That’s not so bad, finally. Maybe it’s a disease I have. Do you think I’m just sick and I’ll get well?”

“No. I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. I hope so.” I looked out the bathroom window and saw the three men walking down the golf course fairway carrying golf clubs.

“I’m not very good at sharing things right now,” my mother said. “I’m sorry.” She cleared her throat, and then she didn’t say anything for almost a minute while I stood there. “I will answer anything you’d like me to answer, though. Just ask me anything, and I’ll answer it the truth, whether I want to or not. Okay? I will. You don’t even have to trust me. That’s not a big issue with us. We’re both grown-ups now.”

And I said, “Were you ever married before?”

My mother looked at me strangely. Her eyes got small, and for a moment she looked the way I was used to seeing her—sharp-faced, her mouth set and taut. “No,” she said. “Who told you that? That isn’t true. I never was. Did Jack say that to you? Did your father say that? That’s an awful thing to say. I haven’t been that bad.”

“He didn’t say that,” I said.

“Oh, of course he did,” my mother said. “He doesn’t know just to let things go when they’re bad enough.”

“I wanted to know that,” I said.