Then she looked at me. “Pull yourself together, Harry,” she said. “You’ve been letting yourself go to pieces these last few months. You’ve got to get your life in order and get on with it. Everyone’s mother dies, sooner or later. Don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself: you’re brilliant and talented and you have wonderful friends, and you’re a good person, and you should have a good life. And don’t lose yourself in ridiculous teenage crushes. Wait for someone who cares. Harry, there will be someone who cares.” She paused. “Don’t think that you’re paying me some kind of tribute if you let my death become the great event of your life and you fall apart. The best tribute you can pay to me as a mother is to go on and have a good and fulfilling life, and to love someone who deserves and returns your love.”

She turned her head again. “Freddy, you have to let go a little bit. You’re like me with all that control. You have to let go a little bit and let someone love you, and make a life for yourself. The only thing I regret right now is that I’ve spent my whole life looking forward. Don’t do that. I’ve had so many of the things that everyone else only dreams of, and I haven’t always enjoyed them as much as I should have. Enjoy what you have. All of you. Life is—” She paused. “Life is so sweet.”

She paused again, for longer. “I’m so proud of both you boys and I love you so much. I’ll go on loving you even when I’m not here; I’ll love you your whole life. I’ll come sit on your shoulder, the one Grandma isn’t on, and stay there forever.”

And then there was a sort of struggle, as though she were negotiating a few last minutes with her own heavy eyes. She looked at my father again. “I’ve been so lucky. Ever since I married you, I’ve been so lucky. I wouldn’t want to change my life with anyone else’s. I have loved completely, and I have been completely loved, and I’ve had such a good time. I might want to change my death, but even with this death, I wouldn’t want to change my life for any other life in the world. There are so few people who can say that.” She looked up. “I love this room,” she said. “I love this color pink. I’ve loved lying in here, afternoons, nights. It’s like being inside a shell.”