As I pull into the lane to my mother’s house, I see the white fence around her yard is peeling and the boards sun-curl and seem tired. Dark shrubs that had not been there before underline the front of the house like a long green moustache. A white-muzzled lab I don’t remember hobbles out from the shade to bark in a bland obligatory way then turns back to the shade. Its sore hips make its body weave then right itself...
