Mom was smiling as if she had just told herself a private joke or had made a final decision. She sat with her elbow on the table, chin to palm, her mouth hidden behind her bent fingers, her eyes flickering between anger and delight. What I was certain of was that when she turned to me to speak, when she let her arm fall in order to be heard, I understood, with total clarity, why my father needed her, trusted her, sometimes hated her, feared her, occasionally fled from her—and loved her. “It means,” she said, “that soon this will all be over.”
