Leonora did not know her, viewed her as an old pathetic lady who could not talk, and moved her roughly. I do not think that I had ever been in a rage before, but one day when I came back I found that she had left my mother sitting in a chair in her bedroom while she changed the sheets. My mother must have wet the bed. Leonora was talking to her as if she were a bad child, almost threatening her. She did not hear me come in, she was so wrapped up in scolding my mother. She was surprised to see me standing in the doorway. I asked her to finish what she was doing as quickly as she could, and then come to the living room. I told her that she was to speak to my mother with respect, that she was to go down now and apologize and I would stand outside and listen. She said she had done nothing wrong. I told her to apologize or leave, I would let her decide. She walked sheepishly down to the bedroom and said to my mother that she was sorry for speaking to her like that.

My mother died on a Saturday evening at about ten thirty. The room was lamplit and the door closed. I had been sitting beside her for some hours. It was not easy; she was desperately trying to speak and to reach out. I asked her to move her good hand if she was in pain, and to keep it still if she was not. Her eyes focused on me, but I do not think that she heard. She babbled. There was an intensity about the way she moved her lips and her chin. She was not getting ready to die, she was resisting whatever was happening within her. I cannot say that I knew she was dying. I thought she might soon fall asleep, and I wanted to make sure that the sheets were dry. I had never yet had to clean her and wash her, and I hoped that I might be spared that. Had her voice been strong enough, I felt, she would have been shouting. I held her hand and told her that I was here, but she was reliving or inhabiting some other part of her life, something which she seemed almost to grasp and then it eluded her.