My mother always ends a phone conversation with ‘I love you.’

And she says that it is because you never know
When someone will be taken from you,
and I think that is true.

But her “I love you’s” have different levels;
One said in exasperation to my brothers
when they’re being particularly much

One said quietly to my sisters
as they drift slowly into their dreamscapes
and as she’s closing their door

One said matter-of-factly to me
when I am having a conversation with her.

It always takes me by surprise, and I know that it shouldn’t, but it does because the last level of her “I love you” is reserved for my father.

It is said, almost as an afterthought at the end of their phone conversations, said with frustration and almost resigned to her lot in life.

“— love you.”

The spot for the “I” is a glaring void of things left unsaid

It has given me a new greatest fear that I will grow so complacent in my relationship, in my life, that I too will end phone conversations with “—love you.”