“Q,” Mom says to me. We’re sitting on her bed. I’m on the side where Dad used to sleep. Sometimes I forget that my parents gave me the larger bedroom. Even before I hit my first growth spurt. We wanted you to have the room with the most sunlight, they’d said. Sometimes I forget I have the kind of parents that worry about their kid’s vitamin D levels. The kind of parents that are quick to sacrifice in ways big and small.

I shake my head. “Don’t say it,” I tell her. “We’re not gonna cry. We’re gonna be happy, okay?”

“Okay,” Mom says. I wipe her face. I think, what if this is the last time I ever see this face? What if this is the last time we look each other in the eyes? “But I just want you to know that—”

“Mom. Please.”

“I’m so sorry, baby.”

“I know, Mom,” I say. “But I don’t want you to be. Not for this. Not for me. I did what I thought was right. What you would’ve wanted someone to do for me. And did it cost something? Yeah. It cost a lot. But . . . if I saw that little girl flailing in that water right now, knowing that if I dived in it would all happen this exact same way, I gotta dive in that water. I gotta.”

“You could’ve called for help. You could’ve went for help.”

I study Mom’s face. What if this is the last time we’re ever this close? What if the next time she kisses me, she’s leaning down into my forever box? That’s what we call caskets. Forever boxes. Casket sounds too sad. The word casket sounds like it belongs in a casket.

“They wouldn’t have gotten there in time. She would’ve . . . she’d be . . . and how could I live with that?”

“I should’ve raised you to be selfish,” Mom says, her voice full of holes. “Who’s gonna tell me my latest meat-loaf experiment is my best creation yet, huh?”

“We both know your meat loaf is terrible,” I say, smiling. “Maybe the meat-loaf experiments should die with me.”

She slaps my chest. “Who’s gonna take the remote from my hand when I fall asleep watching TV on the couch?”

“You can set the TV timer.”

“Who’s gonna do the dishes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday?”

“That’s what the dishwasher’s for.”

“But it takes so long.”

I laugh. “Because you insist on washing the dishes before you put them in the washer.”

She shoots me a look, tosses one of her eighty thousand decorative pillows at me. Seriously, should there ever be a Great Pillow Shortage, Mom’s bed could singlehandedly solve the crisis in seconds.

“I don’t trust that dishwasher to clean them,” she says.

“So why even use it?”