It was the perfect compromise. I wasn’t giving my entire life over to my sister’s care, but nor was I abandoning her. It didn’t have to be one or the other — that was the big revelation of the evening for me. I wanted to shout it up at the fluorescent rectangle glaring down from the kitchen ceiling, as if that was where my mother’s ghost resided. Mom! It doesn’t have to be one or the other!

“So you’re going with Gorsebrook for sure?” said Jessica.

I swooned a little, still jangling with elation, at the words for sure.

“Well, nothing’s for sure,” I babbled. “But that’s the decision I’ve come to. I’m gonna call Marlene in the morning. Then I’ll call Deanna at Seaside and let her down easy.”

“But you said Kelli can’t get into Gorsebrook right away?”

“No,” I said. “So it’ll be me and Kelli for a while longer but, I mean, it’s nothing I can’t handle. And then I’ll buy a place downtown and — oh! You can help me! You can help me get a place, that’s your job! And you can help me sell this one!” I felt my voice starting to climb in pitch.

“Of course!” said Jessica. “But one thing at a —”

“It seems so obvious, now,” I marvelled. “I don’t know what I was so afraid of! I don’t know why this whole thing felt like such a big, godawful ordeal . . .”

“Because you lost your mother,” said Jessica. “And you had to put your life on hold to come home and take care of your sister. And it was hard.”

“Yeah, but that’s what I’m realizing. I put my life on hold. And I can just, I can just . . . keep it there.”

“Oh, Karen,” said Jessica.

“What?”

“But how long until the spot opens up at Gorsebrook?”

“They can’t tell me,” I said. “I guess it’s a — well, this is kind of grim but maybe it’s a waiting-for-someone-to-kick-off kind of situation.”

“But did she give you any idea when that would be? Because you could end up looking after Kelli a pretty long time, if that’s the case.”

I tried to appreciate what Jessica was saying instead of feeling annoyed. She was only being pragmatic. And, after all, she had spent the entire afternoon listening to me moan about my ongoing terror of ending up as Kelli’s caregiver-for-life. Now here I was on the other end of the phone, sounding crazy, announcing myself all in.

“I know,” I said, trying to sound sobered-up. “I know, but after tonight with the — the sudden-onset diarrhea and everything. It was. I just realized. I can do this!”

“I mean, that’s great, Karen,” said Jessica. And I could hear in her voice, in that hesitant I mean, a decision to bite her tongue. She had pushed, ever so slightly, but now she was backing off. It made me feel defensive.

“And I’ll have help. I have my mother’s folder, everything she’s set up.”