The Weight of Lilacs

The scent of lilacs hit me before I even opened the car door. Mom always loved them, planted bushes all around the house. Now, though, the scent felt heavy, like the air itself was thick with unsaid things. I hadn't been home in almost two years, not since… well, since before Mom got sick. Cancer. The word felt like a jagged stone in my throat.

The house was just as I remembered – cluttered, cozy, and smelling faintly of dust and lemon polish. Mom was in her usual armchair, a faded afghan draped over her knees. She looked smaller somehow, her face thinner, but her eyes… her eyes were still Mom's. Sharp, assessing. "Sarah," she said, her voice raspy. "Took you long enough."

I swallowed. "I'm here now, Mom. How are you feeling?" A stupid question, I knew.

She gave a dry chuckle. "About as good as a woman with stage four cancer can feel. Don't tiptoe around it, Sarah. We're not strangers."

I sat on the edge of the sofa, feeling awkward, like a teenager again. "I brought you some of your favorite cookies from that bakery downtown." I pushed the box towards her. A peace offering, maybe.

She didn't reach for them. "You always did try to fix things with food," she said, a hint of something I couldn't quite decipher in her voice. Was it amusement? Sadness? Resentment?

We spent the next few days in a fragile dance. I cooked, cleaned, and tried to anticipate her needs. She mostly sat, watched, and offered curt instructions or corrections. We talked about the weather, the garden, the neighbors – anything but the big, pink elephant in the room. One afternoon, while I was weeding the lilac bushes, she came outside, leaning heavily on her cane.

"Why did you leave, Sarah?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

I froze, my hands covered in dirt. "You know why, Mom. We've been over this."

"Have we? Or have we just avoided it?" She hobbled closer, her gaze unwavering. "Was it really just about that scholarship? Or was it something else? Something about me?"

The truth hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. It wasn't just the scholarship. It was the constant criticism, the feeling that I could never measure up, the unspoken comparison to my perfect older sister. "It was… complicated," I finally managed to say.

"Complicated?" She scoffed. "Life is complicated, Sarah. But running away isn't the answer."

"And staying here was?" The words were out before I could stop them. I immediately regretted it.

She just looked at me, her eyes filled with a pain I hadn't seen before. "Maybe neither of us had the answer," she said softly. "Maybe we both just did what we thought we had to."

We stood there in silence for a long time, the only sound the buzzing of bees in the lilac bushes. Then, slowly, she reached out and touched my arm. "Come inside, Sarah," she said. "Let's have some tea." The weight of the lilacs still hung in the air, but somehow, it felt a little lighter now. A little less suffocating. Maybe, just maybe, we could find a way to breathe.