Her Bible went on the proper nightstand, without the Golden Pines application in the Psalms. June hung her blouses by color and announced that Ellen deserved “a closet that blooms like a garden.”

My mother stood in the middle of that bedroom turning in a slow circle, like a woman checking whether a dream had solid corners. She sat on the edge of the mattress and smoothed the quilt with her calloused hands, afraid of wrinkling it.

Then she remembered the quilt was hers.

She broke down — not the jagged crying of a victim, but the heavy, clearing sob of a body finally allowed to stop apologizing for taking up room.

“What am I supposed to do with a whole room, Iris?” she laughed through it.

“You sleep in, Mom,” I said, sitting down beside her. “That’s the only job you’ve got now.”