The truth was that Susan had known my mother.
Not casually.
She had been with her on the last night of her life.
I was nineteen when Mom died in a car accident. We’d argued that evening over something embarrassingly small. I wanted to drive to a party with friends. She said no.
I told her I hated her.
Then I slammed my bedroom door.
Twenty minutes later, Mom left the house to pick up groceries.
She never came home.
For twelve years, those had been the last words I remembered saying to her.
I never told anyone how much that haunted me.khalid
Then, shortly before Susan became ill, she’d seen an old photograph of Mom on my bookshelf.
“You’re Linda’s boy,” she whispered.
I froze.
Susan explained that she’d worked with my mother years earlier at a local elementary school. They’d remained friends even after Susan retired.
Then she told me something I’d never known.
The night Mom died, Susan had called her while she was driving to the grocery store.
“She was upset,” Susan said.
My stomach tightened.
“Because of me?”
Susan nodded.
That’s how our nine o’clock conversations began.
At first, I only wanted to know what Mom had said.
But Susan refused to give me the simple answer I was looking for.
Instead, she made me talk.
So every night, I told her another piece of the story.
How I’d avoided Mom’s bedroom after the funeral.
How I’d kept the last birthday card she’d written me but couldn’t bring myself to read it.
How I’d spent twelve years believing that my mother’s final thoughts had been about having an ungrateful son.
Then, one night, Susan finally told me about that phone call.
“Your mother wasn’t angry with you, Sam.”
I stared at her.
