Christmas 2005

"How do you find your mother," asked my father. We were outside on my sister's deck. It was unseasonable warm out. "I don't know, she seems ok, not great maybe, but ok," I said.
"No," my father said. And he just shook his head, as if he didn't exactly know what words to put up. "She's not right," he told me.
"So what's the deal? What's wrong?"
"Hell if I know."

Three months later she was dead.