We sat at my kitchen table drinking coffee, and I finally told her what the funeral had done to me. She listened without defending herself.
“I would do it again,” she said softly. “But I am sorry for the pain.”
“I know,” I said.
And I did.
I still keep the brass key from Unit 16 in a dish on my dresser.
Sometimes I look at it and remember the cold weight of it in my hand beside that grave.
My mother’s choices were not simple.
They hurt me.
They saved me.
And for now, the fact that she is alive is enough to build from.
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