Sixteen Years I Didn’t Speak to My Mother. Then I Went Missing, and From Her Sickbed She Said “Go Find Her”

“Took you long enough.”

“Sixteen years,” I said.

“I meant the drive.”

I laughed, and I bent down and put my arms around her, and she got one arm up around me and held on with everything the stroke had left her, and it was enough.

It was more than enough.

After a while she lowered her good hand to my belly, and right on cue the baby kicked it, hard, and my mother’s eyes went wide.

“She kicked me!” “She’s got attitude,” I said.