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.

Mom didn’t want to go.

 

“Lucynka, I don’t know anyone there,” she said on the phone, and I could hear the TV playing in the background. “And who will water the flowers on my balcony?”

 

– Mom, I’ll water the flowers. You’ll go, rest, and come back tanned.

 

I persuaded her. I did. I can still picture it – standing in the kitchen, shifting the phone from one hand to the other, explaining to my mother that Wojtek meant well. That he was worried about her. That it was kind of him.

 

 

My mother went on August 1st. Wojtek took her in his car, because my mother no longer takes long-distance buses. She’s seventy-eight years old, has blood pressure problems, and her knees give way to every step. Wojtek’s village is about one hundred and twenty kilometers away—too far for a connecting bus, too close to make a big trip out of it.