Page 146 of Sweet Surrender

And then I see her.

She’s sitting against the worn brick wall of the gas station across the lot. She’s wrapped in layers too thin for the evening chill, but I know from experience she won’t take anything else. She’s rocking slightly as she hums a song no one else can hear.

My mother.

The world tilts some and I struggle to breathe as I take steps toward her.

She looks smaller. Frailer. The same though if that makes sense.

Her hair, once wild and tangled, is pulled into a loose ponytail, graying at the roots. Her hands shake as she rubs them together, her nails uneven, and her lips chapped.

She doesn’t see me. Maybe she does. I don’t know, but I know she doesn’t know me. She hasn’t in years.

I stand there, my breath caught painfully in my chest, as Hendrix laces her fingers with mine.

Then, the softest voice I know breaks through the quiet.

“Hi,” says Lyric.

My mother stops rocking. Slowly, she lifts her gaze, unfocused at first, lost in whatever world she’s trapped inside. But then . . . something shifts.

Her vacant, cloudy eyes see.

Not me. Not Hendrix. But her. Her granddaughter.

A slow smile spreads across her cracked lips as I struggle with the fear of whether she’ll hurt Lyric or lash out and scare her.

But then she speaks and the breath I’m holding loosens.

“Well, hello there,” she says, her voice raspy but gentle. “Aren’t you just the prettiest thing.”

Lyric giggles and my heart cracks.

My mother’s expression softens in a way I haven’t seen in decades, in a way I thought was lost forever. She doesn’t recognize me, doesn’t even blink in my direction.

But she sees my little girl.

And in this moment, that’s enough.

“Do you like flowers?” my mother asks, her hands trembling as she reaches into her coat pocket, pulling out something delicate and frayed—an old paper flower, tattered and worn at the edges. “I saved this one. For someone special.”

My daughter nods enthusiastically. “It’s pretty.”

Lyric steps forward before I can stop her, before I can break out of being mesmerized to think clearly, and gently takes the fragile paper bloom from my mother’s hand.

I don’t breathe.

I don’t move.

I just watch.

My mother smiles, something distant but peaceful flickering in her eyes. She touches a strand of my daughter’s hair like she’s touching something sacred. “Beautiful curls,” she murmurs. “Like an angel’s.”

The ache in my chest tightens, a mixture of grief and something impossibly tender.

She doesn’t know she’s looking at her granddaughter.

She doesn’t know she’s meeting a piece of me.