Every time I look out our little kitchen window to the scenic view in the daytime, it’s an instant mood lifter. I wish it were daytime now so I could use the view to calm me.

“I know you like to work, but you have to be careful,” I say.

She waves a hand in the air, like she’s swatting away a fly. “You don’t know what I need, Nicole,” she bites.

The knot in my stomach slingshots to my chest. When she calls me by my full name, I know I’m in deep. I slam the glass down on the counter. It’s all I can do to keep from letting out the scream of frustration lying in wait at the base of my throat.

“Yes, I do.” My voice booms against the walls. “Would you just for one second stop and realize that I might be asking you to slow down because I love you? Because I care about you and want you around for as long as possible? Because being on your feet like this for fifteen hours a day isn’t what a woman your age should be doing?”

A wide-eyed stare is the only response I get from her. I should stop. I should take a breath, and get my voice back under control. But I can’t.

I already lost my dad because he kept going, kept pushing himself, because he refused to go to the doctor for what he thought was a minor pain in his back, even though it had persisted for a year. By the time he went, it was too late. Only months were left.

I refuse to let her fall down that same path, to push herself into exhaustion, into some serious health condition that could have been avoided had she just slowed down. I refuse to stand by and watch my only living parent disregard her own well-being.

Tears burn at my eyelids, but I spin away, back toward the kitchen window, so she can’t see my trembling lips. I’ve already lost my temper in front of her. I don’t want to lose the rest of my emotions too.

Slow, quiet breaths ease the knot in my chest, my racing heartbeat. A gust of air flows in through the open window, immediately cooling my skin, which was hot with frustration moments ago. A crack of thunder sounds in the distance.

“We lost Dad because he didn’t slow down until it was too late,” I finally say. “I don’t want to lose you for the same reason.”

My throat strains to keep my voice steady. It’s a challenge when all I want to do is sob, to make her understand that I’m not doing all this to hurt her.