“I’m sorry,” I said, looking up from the sympathy cards scattered across the mahogany dining table, the same table where James and I had shared thousands of meals, where we’d planned our modest adventures and weathered the storms of his illness together. “Elanor, I don’t understand, don’t you?”
Her smile was sharp as winter, cutting through the grief that had been my only companion since watching them lower my husband’s casket into the unforgiving earth.
“James is gone, Catherine, which means you’re no longer under his protection.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. Protection. As if loving her son had been some kind of elaborate con game. As if the 15 years I’d spent caring for him through cancer treatments and remissions and the final devastating relapse had been calculated manipulation rather than devotion.
