My sister told me she had spent eleven days believing Mom would come home, and that was the part I had never understood. She said Mom kept asking when the next flight was and why I had sent her somewhere without her clothes. She told her that the facility was temporary because she couldn’t bear to explain what was really happening while Mom was confused and frightened. Then she said there were moments when Mom would suddenly become completely lucid and ask, “Did your brother do this because he doesn’t want me anymore?” My sister said she had lied every time. She told Mom I had made the decision because I loved her too much to leave her unsafe. Then she looked at me and said, “I hated you for making me say that.”
I told her I knew I had used her, and I had never expected her to forgive me for it. She said she had spent those eleven days watching Mom search the hallway for the front door, asking when she could go home, and trying to pack things that weren’t hers. But she also admitted something I had never heard before. On the eleventh night, Mom stopped asking to leave and asked my sister whether she was safe. My sister said yes, and Mom replied, “Then tell him I’m not angry.” She had remembered enough to understand what I had done. My sister said that was the moment she stopped being furious and started being afraid of what would happen when Mom remembered again. I told her I wished I could have been there, and she said, “That’s exactly why I didn’t want you there.”
She said if I had been at the airport that day, Mom would have seen my face and known something was wrong. She believed Mom would have fought harder, and neither of us knew whether she would have survived the transition. I told my sister I had always thought I was protecting Mom from one terrible moment. She said, “You were also protecting yourself from watching it happen.” I couldn’t argue with that. Before we left, she took my hand and said, “I still don’t forgive you for using me.” Then she squeezed my hand and added, “But I finally understand why you did it.” And somehow, after all these years, that was the closest thing to forgiveness I had ever expected.
