The first call came at 6:17 the morning after I won the lottery, while my coffee was still dripping and my hands were wrapped around the old “World’s Best Mom” mug my son gave me years ago.
I stared at my phone so long the screen went dark.
Not Denise, not Carla, and certainly not Benjamin.
Still, I checked it every morning.
I stared at my phone.
***
At 6:15, I made coffee in that same blue mug. The gold letters had faded until “World’s Best Mom” looked more like “World’s Best Mm.”
“Well,” I told the mug. “At least you still remember me.”
I’d raised three kids on my own: Denise, Carla, and Benjamin. I worked two jobs, sat through fevers, heartbreaks, and school plays where I clapped too loudly because somebody had to.
Then they grew up, moved out, and started their own lives.
Somewhere along the way, they forgot about mine.
I had eight grandchildren.
“At least you still remember me.”
Eight: Lily, Paige, Nara, Willow, Max, Jeremy, Josiah, and Joanna.
And still, every holiday, I set out one plate.
***
On my seventieth birthday, I sat in my kitchen with store-bought chocolate cake on my good china.
I lit one candle.
“Happy birthday, Debbie,” I said.
“Nope,” I muttered after a moment. I grabbed my purse. “We’re not doing this today. Let’s get out of here.”
I set out one plate.
So I drove to Rosebud Diner because the waitress, Kelly, knew my order, my birthday, and how to say my name like it mattered.
She looked up from the counter. “Miss Debbie! Birthday pie today?”
“I already cheated on you with grocery-store cake, sweetie,” I said. “But I came for cheesy pasta, bad coffee, and poor decisions.”
Kelly grinned. “Lottery-ticket poor decisions?”
“Why not? At seventy, I can either become reckless or start collecting decorative spoons.”
“Miss Debbie! Birthday pie today?”
She printed out a ticket. “Feeling lucky?”
“No, honey. I’m just tired of being sensible and alone.”
***
A week later, I slid that ticket across her counter.
Kelly checked her screen, and her smile disappeared.
“Miss Debbie, sit down.”
“At seventy, that’s always good advice.”
“No,” she whispered. “I mean it.”
“I’m just tired of being sensible and alone.”
The jackpot was the kind of money that made both of us go quiet. I made her read the numbers three times.
Then I said, “Call your manager before I faint on your clean floor.”
Kelly blinked, then started laughing and crying at the same time. “Miss Debbie, happy birthday,” she said, picking up the phone. “I think your life just changed.”
I looked down and finally believed her.
***
By the next afternoon, my face was on the local news.
“Local grandmother wins big,” the anchor said, smiling beside my church directory photo.
I groaned. “Of all the pictures, Lord? That one?”
“I think your life just changed.”
***
That evening, my phone started ringing.
I stared at the screen.
Denise.
Then I answered. “Hello?”
“Mom!” she cried, like we’d just talked yesterday and not eleven months ago. “I saw the news! Why didn’t you call me?”
I looked at the wall where last Mother’s Day’s only card still hung. It was from my dentist, a sweet young woman who had lost her own mother a few years before.
My phone started ringing.
“I was just surprised, Denise,” I said.
“We’ve been meaning to come by, Mom. Things have just been crazy, you know?”
