Life has never unfolded gently for me, and I don’t say that as a complaint but as a kind of simple truth I’ve learned to live beside, like the hum of traffic beyond a window or the ache in your knees that reminds you it might rain tomorrow. I’m thirty-five, a single mother of three — a seven-year-old who feels things too big for her small body, a three-year-old who oscillates between giggles and tantrums like a faulty light switch, and a baby who doesn’t yet understand that nighttime is for sleeping. I’ve learned to stretch myself into whatever shape the day requires. I’ve learned to hold everything together with one hand while soothing a crying child with the other.

And through all of it, my mother lived with us. She is seventy-four, sharp-tongued at times, tender in rare but unforgettable ways, and beautifully stubborn in the way older women who have survived too much often are. She had moved in years ago when climbing the stairs in her old house became dangerous, and although our arrangement wasn’t perfect, it worked. She stayed rent-free, and in return, she helped where she could — reading books to the kids, folding laundry at her own pace, watching them for an hour while I showered or answered work emails. It wasn’t balanced, not exactly, but it was home. It was a rhythm built on a mixture of duty and affection, and even if neither of us said it aloud, I believed we were grateful for each other in our own quiet, complicated ways.