In the succeeding two hundred pages, she explores her mother’s life and her complicated relationship with her mother … in old letters, photographs, innumerable objects. Things shift within her, and now she finds she is looking for proof of her mother’s existence.
Johnson moves into the family home to pack things up – it takes over a year. Her mother accuses her daughter of wanting to get her out of the house and into a retirement home, which isn’t true, and leaves Johnson angry and weeping and wondering, “Will I ever get my life back?” Her mother has been on oxygen for ten years, trailing miles of tubing around with her, often getting tangled up in the loops, cursing the damn thing. Johnson then tells us, “Nineteen years, one month, and twenty-six days of eldercare have brought me to my knees.” “Damn this machine! Call me!” is the last one. In the first few lines, we hear three recent phone messages from Johnson’s mother. Plum Johnson on the verandah of the clapboard house, Oakville
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