I had just been told by my dying mother that she would leave with the housekeeper rather than be parted from her, I had just conceded a thing I did not understand, and my mind had already filed it as handled and moved on to territory and shipments and the hundred urgent nothings I called my life.

I had become a man who could resolve his mother’s deepest grievance and a staffing question with the same indifferent efficiency, and feel, afterward, only the mild satisfaction of a problem closed.

It did not end it.

My mother did not let go of Juliet’s hand.

She sat looking at me for a long moment, several seconds that stretched out in the quiet office, and something moved across her face — a decision being made, a weight being picked up that she had carried for a very long time and had decided, now, with her time running short, to finally set down.

I had seen my mother carry things before.