Spring fell all over me this year in a flurry of scattered miles, Driving back and forth across three states, thumbing through my mind for words to say as my brother sits by his wife, my help nothing more than a thin slice of light across the floor. On the first visit she sits up, talks about the jazz her son plays, big name venues, the shuffle and shift it took to cover her classes. She wears a wig, lipstick, watches the news on a miniature TV, keeps up with things, makes lists, even speaks long distance on the telephone. After two weeks I return to find her pressing my brother to buy hanging flowers for the porch, fuchsia, though she can’t name the bloom. She doesn’t sit now, talks through the muffled gray of drugs, shuns visitors, so I wait fretfully with my brother for the ringing of her bell. Mostly she sleeps, caught in a wedge of covers. He carries the thin stick, stiff memories, in halting steps to the bathroom. She avoids the mirror, slips into a room that holds little light. Rain comes the last time and I enter the house with mud on my shoes. Eggshell quiet. No sign of anyone. Upstairs when I see her lying on her side, she turns slightly, barely lifts her lips to smile. Her head wrapped turban style, the grief gone from her, breathing remains. Watching drops across the pane, my brother stacks unopened mail, cracks tins to feed the cat, eats food lifted from bone white paper sacks. by Judy Kaber