You were eighty-two, and I was fifty-five, but in that hospital hallway I felt like your eleven-year-old again.
The vending machine at midnight hummed like a second heart. I bought a turkey sandwich that had been sitting there too long and a bottle of water.
I thought of the lobster oven mitt you knitted me when I moved out. You said it meant someone was always watching, even from far away.
I called my night-shift coworker, Tony, who was swapping out a compressor at the grocery store. He said, 'Your mom's tough. So are you.'
But you weren't tough tonight. You were small in that bed, wires and numbers around you, sleeping like you'd finally let go.
I ate the sandwich standing up, watching the vending machine's lights flicker. This was the first time I saw you as fragile.
And I knew, even then, I would never get to be your youngest again. Not the way I always was.