By two in the afternoon, I was pulling into my mother’s driveway on Maple Street.

Evelyn was standing on her front porch, trying to push a forty-pound clay planter holding three blooming white orchids toward the corner railing.

“Put that down, Mom,” I said, hurrying up the wooden steps to grab the lip of the heavy pot.

“You know what the doctor said about your lower back.”

We lifted the planter together and set it down where the afternoon sun hit the porch floor.

Evelyn wiped her hands on her canvas apron and gently rubbed my shoulder.