She wrote that her real son had not held her hand or looked into her eyes since his father passed away fifteen years before, that Arthur sent checks and he sent lawyers, that he knew how to send everything except the one thing she had ever wanted, which was himself.

She wrote that she had understood, the moment I walked in nervous and guilty, that he had paid someone to sit in his place.

And then she wrote the part I have never been able to read without weeping.

She wrote that when I sat beside her, when I brought the chocolates, when I listened to an old woman ramble about people and places I had no reason on earth to care about, I had given her something her money had never been able to buy.

I had given her dignity.