“I was so happy when I found out I was pregnant with your brother. Having Clay helped a little,” she continues, glancing back up at me. “But sometimes women can get really depressed after they give birth. And, unfortunately, this happened to me.” Watery, smudged lines paint her face, but her voice is steady. “My art helps me make sense of how I’m feeling. It helps me forget the pain and focus on something beautiful. I find pieces of myself every time I create something, and it’s easier to fit back into… reality, to make myself whole again. I know what’s important, and I’m trying really hard to get better.”

I don’t know what she wants me to say. Does she really think I don’t know she’s been depressed? Does she think I don’t care? Would it matter if I told her how much I do care?

“Say something,” she urges. “You can say whatever you want.”

I wonder if that’s true. Saying whatever I want seems too much. Like looking at my memory as a whole instead of breaking it up day by day. Maybe, with Mom, I should do the same thing. Take one thing at a time and go from there. I know what it feels like to miss something I used to have and wish I could get it back again. How, sometimes, I feel alone even when there are people all around me.

“Is depression like how it feels to be lonely?” I finally ask. It might seem like a small thing, but the question is mired deep in my heart.

Mom’s eyes shimmer with tears. She grimaces, and the pain etched in the spiderweb lines around her eyes deepens. “Oh, Lulu, hon. Have you felt lonely?”

I shrug and swallow past the weird hollow spot in my throat.

She squeezes my hand harder. Click. A memory box shimmers in front of me. Ten years ago. Mom holds my hand, and Maisie is on her lap. She’s telling me a story about the best big sister in the world, and I know she’s talking about me. Her eyes are filled with love for Maisie, but when she looks up, the same love is there for me, too. Her hand is tight in mine. She promises to never let go.

The memory closes. I file it away to the time before Maisie died.

I tune back in, catching the end of what Mom is saying. “Because I love you and Clay so much. I promise, I am going to try harder. I know you have a very special relationship with your gram, and I don’t want to get in the way of that at all. But I want you to know I love you. I’m so very sorry I stopped being the mom you needed.”