TUESDAY, MARCH 19

Four days in, three days to go. All things considered, things are going surprisingly well, so in your face, Cecil! Mom may not look the greatest, but in other ways she seems a lot better than she did when we left at the end of December.

We have a routine to our days. Mom waits to have breakfast with me (even if I don’t get up till eleven, which has happened every day so far), and she cooks me whatever I want: pancakes, waffles, bacon and eggs, anything. She doesn’t eat much herself, although this morning she had two whole pancakes.

Then we go for a long walk, bundling up because there’s still snow on the ground and you can see your breath. Mom asks me a lot of questions. She wants to know everything, down to the last detail.

“Main physical characteristic of each of your teachers,” she said yesterday.

“Mr. Coulter, Phys Ed: No neck. Ms. Wrightson, Math: Talks like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Mr. Jankovich, Socials: Wears socks with sandals. Mrs. Bardus, Home Ec: Stone-faced. Mr. Schell, English: Big ears.”

“Three words you’d use to describe your friend Farley. Quick, without thinking too much.”

“Weird. Enthusiastic. Loyal.”

“And Alberta?”

“Rude. Bold. Unique. Pretty.”

Mom smiled. “That’s four words.”

On Monday, she drove into Kingston for her session with Dr. Dumas, so I stayed with Pop-Pop and Grams. Grams and I played Rummoli all afternoon. Today, the four of us drove to Sandbanks Provincial Park. It was a milder day, and we walked over the dunes and along the beach for over an hour.

Most afternoons, Mom and I pull out one of Pop-Pop and Grams’s board games and play in the living room. That’s when we discuss the person Dad and I never talk about at home.

Jesse. Mom talks about Jesse a lot.

One day she said, “Remember when Jesse was four, he put the plastic cheese from Mouse Trap up his nose? And I had to take him to emergency to get it removed?”

I didn’t remember because I was only two at the time, but I’d heard the story a million times so I said, “Yes.”

Another day she said, “Remember the camping trip we took, near Tofino? And Dad bought you and Jesse a kite?”

I remembered. It was a beautiful kite, rainbow-colored and shaped like a dragon.

“Jesse loved that kite,” she said, gazing past me out the window. “He’d fly that thing for hours every day.”

I loved that kite too. I flew it for hours every day, too, I thought. But all I said was, “Yeah, he did.”

Today she said, “Remember when Jesse was in second grade, he did that comedy routine for the talent show?” She chuckled. “He stood up onstage and told knock-knock jokes for five minutes straight.”

“That was me,” I said.

“Pardon?”

“That was me,” I repeated. “Not Jesse.”

Her smile faded. “You’re sure?”

I nodded. “Knock-knock, who’s there? Isaac. Isaac who? Isaac coming in! Remember?”

She chuckled, kind of. Fifteen minutes later, she murmured, “I was sure that was Jesse.”

She never talks about what he did. In fact, she never talks about the last two years of his life. It’s like she’s frozen him in time at the age of twelve.

But mostly I think talking about Jesse is a good sign. She isn’t bottling it all up, which I guess is what Dad and I do.

Speaking of Dad. If only I could get her to talk about him. It seems like every time I bring him up, she changes the subject.

Maybe I’m just imagining things.

Another good sign: Mom has asked me to come to her session with Dr. Dumas tomorrow. She says he wants to meet me. I’d like to meet him, too. I want to tell him thanks for everything he’s done and all that, but it’s time for my mom to come home.