I wanted my mother back now, all at once, tonight.

But I was learning — slowly, and against my nature — that some of the most important things in a life cannot be seized.

They can only be prepared for, and then waited for, with an open hand.

Chapter 11 — A Museum of Childhood

So over the following weeks, I turned our home into a museum of a childhood my mother could not remember.

I brought out the old photo albums and left them where she might open them.