I wait for my mother to haunt me as she promised she would; long to wake in the night with the familiar sight of her sitting at the end of my bed, to talk to her one more time, to feel that all the pieces have been put into place, the puzzle is solved and I can rest.

Sometimes I think I've seen something out of the corner of my eye and I stop still in the middle of my Pacific Palisades kitchen, looking for the flutter of a sign; or I'm walking in the West Village, headed to my New York apartment, loaded down with groceries, when I hear her laugh ring out. I turn in circles, looking for her. Where are you, Mom? Why won't you come?

This isn't new, this longing I have for her. It's the same ache I had when I was five, sitting on the bench outside the nurse's office at school, feeling embarrassed and ashamed because I had once again panicked for no apparent reason. I waited and waited, counted to 10 hundreds of times, knowing that if I could see her eyes I'd be safe. Then suddenly, as if I'd conjured her out of wanting, there she was. My throat would lock as I watched her coming toward me, hugging her purse to her stomach like a hot-water bottle, and when she got close enough, I'd jump to my feet, hiding my face in her legs.

From In Pieces by Sally Field ©2018. Published by Hachette Book Group.