When I did, she was standing three feet away, no longer a woman in pearls but an older, smaller person who looked as though she hadn’t slept in a month. Her hands were empty. I couldn’t remember ever seeing them without a purse or a handkerchief.
“We were wrong,” she said. It sounded as if the words hurt coming out. “Your father will never say it, so I will. About the farm, and about the uniform. About everything.”
I waited.
“I sent back your invitation because I was ashamed. Not of you.” She pressed her lips together. “Of how much I’d missed. I thought if I didn’t open it, it would stay the way I’d wanted it.”
“Mom.”
“You don’t have to forgive me. I’m only asking whether, someday, I might come and see the porch.”
