It was never flour.

It was a truth she was keeping alive for me until I was strong enough and free enough to hold it.

I opened the tin one last time, brushed the last of the flour dust from my fingers, and I smiled through everything I was feeling, because I finally understood my mother, all the way down.

A few days later I drove out to the cemetery.

Her stone was still raw and new, the earth over her not yet settled, and I sat down in the grass beside it the way I used to sit beside her at the kitchen table.