Jen

“In her last weeks, she had mo­ments of lu­cid­ity, and I cher­ished them when I was around to talk to her. One of these con­ver­sa­tions hap­pened when it was just me and her in the hos­pi­tal room.
‘I sus­pect you will never have a hus­band,’ she said, look­ing at me in­tently from her bed.
‘Would you be up­set if that hap­pened?’ I asked.

‘Your mother would be,’ she said, then low­ered her voice. ‘But I think you would be wise not to.’ This sur­prised me as I had al­ways thought that she and my grand­fa­ther had been very happy to­gether.

‘Why do you say that?’ I asked.
Her hand, spot­ted in soft-brown splodges, the rails of her bones pro­trud­ing, flapped gen­tly at me to take it.

I cupped it in both of mine.
‘You have a home that is yours,’ she said. ‘And your own money. Don’t you?’
‘I have a bit of money, yes.’
‘And you have your ed­u­ca­tion. And you have your ca­reer.’ I nod­ded. ‘Then you have ev­ery­thing,’ she said.”
― Dolly Alderton, Good Material