Maybe I’ve become the kind of mother people move away from. The thought sank like a stone in her chest. She pressed her hand to her mouth, whispering into the emptiness, “I was only trying to help.”
But the longer she sat there, the more the sadness hardened into something sharper. Her gaze moved to the clock, ticking evenly above the stove. The same clock that had measured every school morning, every bedtime story, every time she’d dropped everything to be there when Lisa called.