“Do you regret calling the clerk, Grandma?” I asked her.

She did not answer right away.

She looked down at her own hands, worn by decades of gardening and cooking and the raising of the very son who had just driven away from her without looking back.

“I regret that I raised a son who looked at his mother and saw a line item on a ledger,” she said finally, her voice steady and unyielding.

“I do not regret protecting what your grandfather built.”