I’d written a paper for my microbiology class. A case study. Although meant to be fiction, the assignment was to come up with a fictional disease, and I’d taken the opportunity to write about my mother’s illness. A purging of guilt, really, seeing as writing the events down helped me realize how screwed up it was that I’d been her main caregiver in those weeks before she’d died. She’d refused to see a doctor and remained adamant that I not take her to any hospital, no matter how bad it’d gotten.
