My Mother, Mr. X, and the Kind of Regret That Doesn’t Knock First

In the middle of managing sarcoidosis and all the glamorous paperwork life insists on assigning, I keep circling back to one voice I can still hear clearly: my mother’s—suddenly brighter, younger, almost mischievous—when an old name resurfaced after decades. It started as a phone call and ended up becoming one of those stories that quietly rearranges your insides… especially when you never get the ending you thought you’d get.