Eventually, with the necessary arrangements made and her wishes clearly expressed, she moved into my spare bedroom.
My friends thought I’d lost my mind.
“You barely know this woman,” one told me.
“You work all day. What happens when she needs help at three in the morning?”
Another asked whether I expected to inherit her house.
I told them I didn’t want her house.
I wanted her to have someone nearby when she was frightened.
And every night at nine, after her medication and the evening care routine, I pulled that wooden chair beside her bed.
I leaned close to her ear.
And I told her about my mother.
I told her about the thirty-six hours.
I told her how I’d stood in my kitchen six years earlier, convincing myself that Saturday would be soon enough.
I told her about the hospital phone call, the funeral, and the years I’d spent pretending I hadn’t made a choice that still haunted me.
Enid never interrupted.
She never told me that I was selfish.
She never said I should have known better.
She simply listened.
And somehow, speaking those words into the quiet room became the only part of my day when I didn’t have to pretend I was fine.
Eight months into caring for her, I finally understood something painful.
I’d convinced myself I was helping Enid because she had nobody.
But a part of me had also been trying to return to that hospital six years earlier and do something differently.
I couldn’t save my mother.
I couldn’t go back and catch that train.
But I could make sure Enid didn’t have to lie awake wondering whether anybody would come if she called for help.
That was the truth.
And I thought it was the whole truth.
Until Enid’s nephew returned with a solicitor.
This time, he didn’t shout.
He wore a navy suit and carried a thick folder. His sister stood beside him, her expression carefully composed.
“We’d like to speak with Enid,” the solicitor said.
“She’s resting.”
“This concerns her estate.”
I looked at him.
“She’s still alive.”
“Of course. But given her condition, we need to establish whether she has been unduly influenced.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
They wanted to know whether Enid had changed her will.
Whether I’d asked for money.
