Mom signed the durable power of attorney and her health care directive that afternoon, in front of Mr. Ostrander and a notary from the bank downstairs. Rob drove over from Mandan the next week to sign his acceptance as co-agent.
On the way home, Mom looked out the window at the snow-covered fields.
“I want you to tell Pam yourself,” she said. “About the bank account. I don’t want her finding out from the bank.”
“I’ll tell her at Easter, Mom.”
“She’s going to be hurt.”
“I know.”
Mom sighed. “Your father always said the hardest thing about raising four children was that they never stopped being four different children.”
Those eleven weeks were long.
I called Mom every evening instead of every Monday. She told me about the cats, the weather, the church ladies’ quilting group, and a cardinal that had started coming to the feeder outside the kitchen window. Every time, before we hung up, I asked her the same question.
“What does the thermostat say, Mom?”
“Seventy,” she’d say. And then, a little sheepishly, “Sixty-eight at night.”
In late February the co-op’s monitor reported the tank at thirty percent, and a truck came out and filled it without anybody calling. Bev phoned me afterward to let me know.
“Kyle filled her up this morning,” she said. “Three hundred and forty gallons. Your mom came out on the porch in a sweater and brought him a plate of cookies.”
I laughed for the first time in weeks.
The charge was $711. It went on my Visa. I didn’t mind.
I didn’t hear from Pam. Not a call, not a text, not a card. When I asked Mom about her, she’d say, “She’s been out a few times. She doesn’t talk about you. She’s just tired, honey.”
