You walk into her room, looking at the photos on the wall. It’s easier for you to pretend to look around than to actually look at her.

“Do you remember when you were little,” you ask her.

“Yeah,” she replies, not giving you much thought as she runs around the room getting ready to leave.

You leave her room, careful not to make a sound to disrupt her. But you know she doesn’t notice that you’ve left.

You think back to the almost accident; your soda flying over the center console and onto the floor near her feet. You could only tell her that it wasn't your fault. Because it wasn't. You don’t offer to help and you don’t check that she is okay. But you check on your grandson, who was in the passenger seat in front of you. You emasculate him, but you don’t care. She gets out of the car, parked at a Jack in the Box, and leaves. You don’t follow her. You stay, seated in the back seat with your seatbelt on and say nothing. You don’t talk about what just happened and you don’t offer to help her when she returns with a bundle of paper towels. She continues to clean, mumbling but you can’t understand what she’s saying. She finally stops patting down the mess and gets back in the car. She drives home and you try to talk to her but she keeps raising the volume. You laugh it off.

Things haven’t been great between you two since that day. She tried to tell you why she was upset, but all you told her that is was not your fault. She left your room and you went back to watching the television.

Since then you and her only spoke when you needed to. So that meant, only when you needed rides to various places. She would tell you yes and the drive over to your destination was quiet. You would ask about her friends and about how classes are going, but you never ask about her. And when it was time for her to pick you up, you never understood why she was so curt with you.

So when she came to you with a project, sewing up pants that she had tailored herself, you said yes. But only because she gave you rides to places.

This was normal for you, besides you would cook. But you left it for her to serve her brother. You would check in, but it was to see how your grandson was doing today. If she was sick, you noticed. But you never offered more than a cup of tea.

But what you don’t know is how much time she spends thinking about you. Wondering why things are the way they are. She tells herself not to think of you but does the opposite, nitpicking every detail. Your words sting after you have said them without thinking and they leave a mark every time. She notices that you don’t see how you’ve hurt her and the way you look so innocent to everyone else. But she sees something in you that your daughter and her husband could see since the beginning; something that she had to learn for herself the hard way. She stopped believing in you they way she used to. She sees the money you give her as a payment for her services, never as a gift. She knows that somewhere you have good intentions, but all she can see are the misguided actions. She wonders why you had to ask her to visit the homeland during her busiest month. She thinks about how you seem to avoid any real conversation always claiming that you don’t know. She wonders if you realize how uncomfortable the room feels when you two talk. She is tied to you in only one way and she wonders how you are tied to her. She wonders how you are really doing, the doors to your room always shut. But despite all of it, she remembers things that you may not. She wants to know if you remember going on the bus with her? She wants to know if you remember walking around the mall, letting her run around and explore? She wants to know if you remember playing in the playground by the old house? Why? Because that’s the person that she remembers. The strong woman who seemed to know what she was doing. Maybe she just grew up and she saw who you really are. Maybe, just maybe, the two of you have more to go before breaking the surface.