In 2013 my mother sold the only asset she had ever owned. She was thirty-seven.

She has been a nurse ever since, on a nurse’s salary, in a rented two-bedroom, and she stepped down to per diem last year because her back can’t take five twelves anymore, and per diem has no benefits.

She bought me a tomorrow with her entire retirement, and she has never mentioned it. Not once. Not in eighteen years. Not in a fight, not on a bad night, not by accident.

I said, “Mom. I want to buy you a house.”

Laura put down her pen. “No.”

“I have the money. Between the practice and — I have it. I’ve run the numbers, I’ve been running them for a week. Something small, near the clinic, three bedrooms so there’s a room for—”