My brother took my mother to the countryside for August – “let her have a break from the apartment building.” On Thursday, my mother called from a neighbor’s phone: she had run out of blood pressure medication, and “Wojtek couldn’t be bothered because he was angry.” I dropped the medication off on Friday. My mother was waiting at the gate with a bag.

• She arrived.
• That’s good.

Silence again. But this time – shorter. As if something inside her had snapped.

– Lucyna, I didn’t know she was like that… I thought she was happy here. I meant well.

I wanted to say – you should have asked. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t ask for three weeks either.

“Wojtek, maybe you could come to Łódź on Saturday? To see your mom. For dinner, of course.”

He was silent for so long that I thought he had hung up.

• Would your mother like that?
• I’ll ask.

I asked that same evening. Mom listened, looking at her flowers on the balcony, which had already sprouted new buds.

“Let him come,” she said. “I’ll make some broth. Just don’t let him smoke in the kitchen.”

It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t forgetting. It was something much more difficult—an invitation to try again.