Rationale

My mom ate in silence, once looking up and taking stock of my dad. Her eyes widened, and the faintest smile crossed her lips before she went back to staring at the spoon. Later my dad told me that such a moment was “a ghost of Mom’s former self, but it’s enough to make me think she recognized me.” Well, absolutely. My rational side tells me that any facial tick that could barely be interpreted as recognition is probably just nerve endings firing randomly, some sort of side effect connected to the wretched state in which her brain resides. But my dad believes it to be my mother reaching across an impossible void, even for just a second, and touching him.

Come to think of it, it’s just as improbable that a guy was killed and came back to life three days later.