I couldn’t believe it.
Two years.
A woman I’d barely heard mentioned since childhood had played an enormous role in raising me.
“She made your meals,” Mom explained. “She helped you learn your letters. She
read you stories and taught you how to bake.”
I looked toward the little rolling pin on the counter.
“Was that mine?”
“Yes. Margaret made it for you.”
Suddenly, I remembered standing on a chair beside a kitchen counter, proudly flattening dough with that tiny rolling pin.
I’d always assumed those memories belonged to our home.
But they belonged to Margaret’s.
“Why did she disappear from our lives?” I asked.
Mom folded her hands.
“She moved away after her husband found work in another town.”
“And you stopped talking?”
“Not right away.”
“What happened?”
She hesitated.
Then she whispered, “I felt ashamed.”
“Of what?”
“Of needing her so much.”
I stared at my mother.
She continued.
“Margaret was wonderful to us, Laura. She never complained. She never asked for money or expected anything in return. But every time I left you with her, I felt like I was failing as
a mother.”
