My hand moved before my conscience could catch up. I pulled the cash toward me and felt it settle in my palm like a small, heavy stone.
"When do I start?"
He almost smiled. For a moment he looked like a man relieved to put something heavy down on someone else's back.
"Saturday. And Jeremy. Don't get attached."
I nodded, already knowing I had just agreed to become someone I was not.
***
The nursing home hallway smelled of antiseptic and old roses. My palms were damp as I rehearsed the name Tim had drilled into me over the phone the night before.
Room 214. I knocked once, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
A hot wave of shame rolled up my throat.
Rosie sat in a chair by the window, a thin blanket folded across her lap. She looked up slowly, blinking against the afternoon light.
"Mama," I said, the word tasting strange in my mouth. "It's me. Tim."
For a long moment, she just studied my face. Then her whole expression softened, and she reached out a trembling hand.
"There you are!" she whispered.
I crossed the room and took her hands. I had expected to feel clever and detached. Instead, a hot wave of shame rolled up my throat.
Nobody had asked me those things in years.
"Sit, sit," Rosie said, patting the chair beside her. "Have you eaten? You look tired."
"I'm okay, Mama."
"Are you sleeping enough, Timmy? You always pushed yourself too hard."
Nobody had asked me those things in years. Not since my dad left. Not since my mom got sick.
I sat there for an hour, mostly listening. Rosie talked about a garden I had never seen and a dog I had never owned, and I nodded along as if it all belonged to me.
When I stood to leave, she squeezed my hand.
"Come back soon."
"I will, Mama."
As I turned toward the door, I glanced back and saw tears shining in her eyes. She quickly looked away and dabbed at them with the corner of her blanket.
Something in the way she said it made me look away.
***
The second time I visited, I brought tulips. The third, a small box of caramel chocolates that the nurse said Rosie liked. By the fourth visit, I was showing up on a Wednesday, a day Tim had not paid for.
In the corridor I met Margaret, a fragile woman with sharp eyes and a cardigan two sizes too big. She watched me carry the flowers past her door.
"You visit her a lot," she said.
"She's my mother."
