I wake every morning at six to the whir of my mother’s blender. She makes something with lots of kale, collagen, bee pollen. Something that I know people pay at least fifteen dollars for in the city. When I first moved in, I would grumble, throw a pillow over my head and hope to fall back asleep. Sleep was so crucial then. It was my only escape from the frantic thoughts that wouldn’t stop churning through my head, no matter what distraction.

But now I welcome the sound. It’s like an alarm clock, and anyway, there’s no way my mom would have the self-awareness to stop her crack-of-dawn smoothie-making. Most mornings I pad downstairs, make some coffee and sit with her, let her prattle on about how the creamer in the coffee is going to give me cancer, that she’s thinking of going to a silent retreat for a week in the Catskills, that if I just learn how to meditate away my pain, my shame, all will be well again. “Nothing in this life is permanent,” she likes to chirp.

“How did you sleep?” She’s dressed in an embroidered ankle-length caftan, her graying brown hair up in a bun, glasses askew on her nose. “Is the lavender spray still working well?”

I nod and start the coffee maker, something I had to buy because she gave up caffeine three years ago. “All good, Mom. All good.” I mix my cancerous creamer into the roast and sit next to her. Outside, the sky is breaking, a breathtaking watercolor of orange and yellow gilding the landscape.

“What’s on the agenda today?” She takes a sip of her green drink from a metal straw. She asks me this every morning, even though the answer is always the same: stare at the wall for a while, try to read a book, watch a season of The Office. Take another nap. In my old life, I was never someone who dreamt of free time, who relished sitting around and doing nothing. I needed to busy my mind, to always have a project, something to work on, to manage. I would cancel on friends constantly to stay late at the office, preferring the solitude of the empty floor, the dimmed lighting, the hum of the building ventilation system, to most people’s company. And there was always more to do, more wholesalers to follow up with, new media requests, expense reports to be submitted, new items to launch online with copy written by an outsourced marketing company but perfected by me.

Magdelena wasn’t my baby, but sometimes I felt like its parent. I called it my goddaughter and, in my quieter, slightly resentful moments I would tell myself it was the goddaughter whom I’d adopted. Because even Huda didn’t stay as late as I did.