I don't know if this even counts as a confession, maybe it's just… a thought. A really messed-up thought. My mom, she lives like, a good 500 miles away. Has for years. Ever since I moved for work, then had my kid. So most of our talks are just… phone calls, you know? The usual. "Are you eating enough? Why don't you visit more?" (The guilt, man. Every single time.) Anyway, a couple weeks ago, she came to stay. It was for my son's third birthday. He loves his Nonna, always gets so excited to see her. And I was, too, I think. I really was looking forward to having her around. The day after the party, my son, Mateo, he was just playing on the living room floor. Building some tower of blocks, probably. And my mom, she was just sitting on the couch, watching him. Or… not watching him, exactly. Staring *at* him. Like he was a painting, or maybe a really complicated math problem she couldn’t quite solve. Her eyes were just… empty. No smile. No “Oh, what a clever boy!” No nothing. Just this blank, faraway look. I was in the kitchen, making coffee, and I kinda froze. I don’t know why. It just felt… wrong. Like a glitch in the matrix or something. I watched her for a bit. Maybe thirty seconds? A minute? It felt like forever. Mateo, he looked up once, kinda waved a block at her, and she didn’t even blink. Not a flicker. He just went back to his blocks. And I just stood there, holding a mug that was probably still too hot, feeling this weird, cold knot in my stomach. Like… what am I even looking at? (Is this what it’s come to?) I kinda cleared my throat, made some noise, and she jolted. Like she was waking up from a deep sleep. “Oh, mijo,” she said, and then her face went back to normal. The Nonna face. Smiling, a little tired. “Your son, he is so smart.” And I just… nodded. I said something like, “Yeah, he’s a little genius,” trying to make it sound normal. But I couldn’t shake that image. That blankness. I guess I’ve been seeing it on the phone too, little snippets. Repeating herself, forgetting things. But seeing it in person, seeing her look at my kid like that… it hit different. I don’t know what to do. I mean, I can’t just pack up my life and move back, can I? I have my job, Mateo’s school… My whole life is here now. But the thought of her… fading… a thousand miles away, it’s just… it’s a lot. And I feel like a total jerk for not knowing what I’m supposed to feel. I think maybe I should feel more. But I just feel… tired. So tired.