I opened my mouth to say something, but she was already wheeling her suitcase toward the door, not a backward glance.
When my mother heard that no one was looking after me, she bought the earliest train ticket she could find that same night and sat on a hard seat for eighteen straight hours to reach the hospital.
The moment she saw me lying in that bed, the incision from my C-section still seeping through the bandages, her eyes went red.
"Sweetheart, don't you worry. Mama's here. I'll take care of you and the baby."
And she meant every word.
During those days in the hospital, she fed the baby, changed diapers, and looked after me all at once.
Every time I needed the bathroom, she'd hold me steady with one arm while carefully lifting the IV bag with the other.
She was a small woman. Every time she raised that bag, she had to stand on her tiptoes and stretch her arm as high as it would go, terrified the blood might flow back into the line.
After discharge, the real recovery began.
Every morning before dawn, while I was still sleeping, my mother was already up making soup.
By the time the sun rose, she'd have the baby rocked back to sleep before heading out to buy groceries and cook.
My mother had been frugal her entire life. When she was home alone, she wouldn't even buy meat for herself.
But for me, every single meal had the best fish and the best cuts she could find. When I tried to give her money for food, she flat-out refused.
After I finished eating, she'd scrape together whatever was left on the plates, eat a few quick bites, then go right back to the laundry, the cooking, the feeding, the diaper changes.
At night, she carried the baby into her own room so the crying wouldn't wake me.
For thirty days straight, she never took a single day off. She never slept through a single night.
Watching her grow thinner by the day from sheer exhaustion, I couldn't bear it anymore. I suggested she take a break and let me hire a postpartum nurse instead.
What did Seth say at the time?
"Do you know how expensive those nurses are? Besides, your mom is family. She'll take better care of you and the baby than some stranger ever could."
And now?
Now that they were demanding my mother pay for her stay, suddenly she was a stranger.
Seeing my mother frozen in place, Cornelia frowned, her tone sharpening with impatience: