Mom came into the room with a bunch of bags (containing the usual - lightly used paper towels, lunch Tupperware and crusty bowls, crumpled magazine clippings, starchy crumbs, bobby pins, coins, Asian seed/tea/powdered grain drink mixes, Taiwanese newspaper articles, medical billing papers, cash in recycled envelopes, scribbled doodles and scraps of paper, a hairbrush or two, knitting stitch markers, receipts, stray hairs, paper clips, powder that had fallen out of the drink mix packets, assorted make-up from Target, lotion and maybe a dead gnat).

She noticed a package on the kitchen table.

“Something I can eat?”

“UPS pouches,” I replied.

She looked disenchanted.

“Nothing I can eat?”

“You’re welcome to eat them.”