A Toast

"My mother," I said to Mr S, "died ten years ago today."
"Twenty," he said. "It was twenty years."

I can't quite process that, since it seems like the call just came yesterday. We were standing by the back steps, discussing the new storage shed we were building. It wasn't a huge surprise, she'd been failing, but you never really expect your mother will actually die. Time stands on its head, and it often still feels to me like our schedules have just gotten badly mixed up and we are definitely due for a visit.