I could never quite comprehend my friends' despair when they talked about their ageing parents. I was born when my mom was just 19, and because of that - and maybe also because I was her only child - we'd always been more like best friends than mother and daughter. To me my mother was ageless, and would never lose her vitality, courage or beauty. She never got past high school, but she was the smartest woman I knew. She always told me that the joy in life was not in keeping score, but in playing the game well. And I tried.

I married a man with a solid future in electronics. We had two beautiful boys who played hockey and got good grades, and when they were both in high school I got started on my career. Life, I thought, was good.

I visited my mom every weekend at her home in Albany, about 10 kilometres away. I'd take her to the hairdresser or the supermarket, or we'd just sit and chat over tea. 'Gracie, did I tell you about Pam and Robert from across the street?' she asked one morning.

She had. Three times, in fact.

'No, Mom, what happened to them?'

If I said she'd already told me, she got angry - at me for telling her I'd already heard, and at herself for not remembering.

'Well, Tracy from next door said that Robert lost his job and started drinking, and then he beat Pam, so she had him arrested, but they let him go and now he's moving out.'

My mother had been living alone since my dad died and at first everything had been fine. She even promised to learn how to use the computer I'd bought her so she could email her grandsons - it was the only kind of letter-writing our boys would do. But clicking and double-clicking are learned skills that have no analogy for a woman born in 1936. When I first called to try and explain the mouse to her I am sure she was using her thumb. But I was afraid to ask.

It was about seven months ago that I first noticed the changes in her behaviour. They were little things, in the beginning - like forgetting who had driven her to church that Sunday, or getting agitated at having to wait in a line at the bank. Then one day she invited us, Peter, the boys and me, to lunch. She had spent the entire morning preparing it, she said when she called, and she wouldn't take no for an answer. When we'd finished eating and were just about done washing up she looked at me and said, 'That was a delicious lunch, wasn't it? Which one of you cooked that lovely meal?'

It was clear she couldn't go on living on her own for much longer. I wasn't sure I was up to the job of caring for her, but her doctor thought it would be good for her to be around familiar faces. I had worked as a business etiquette consultant for 10 years, an ideal job: a little travel, interaction with other professionals and a flexible schedule. But then they'd rationalised, and I was 46 and unemployed. Though our net income would suffer, I thought now, at least I'd have the time to devote to Mom.

Around the time my mother moved in with us, Mark, who was then 20, came to me with a surprising announcement.

'Mom, I'm quitting university. I'm going to California to study yoga. I think it's time to spread my wings; know what I mean?'

I hoped it was a rhetorical question, because the only response that came to my mind was: 'Are you insane?' Mark had won a scholarship to one of the finest engineering schools in the country, which happened moreover to be just blocks from where we lived, and he was blazing through the programme with honours. But it was plain to me that, even though he was good at it, engineering was not his passion. I was saddened by his departure - not only because I missed the wet towels on the floor or the brain-numbingly loud music he was forever playing, but because it marked my demotion from a supervisory role in his life to one of spectator and - very occasional - consultant.

Our older son, Allen, is a loving, gentle soul. About that time, he had taken off two years and was travelling the world, picking up odd jobs washing dishes and waiting tables to pay his way. Admittedly it's not quite what I'd hoped he'd be doing at his age, but he was happy, and, as Peter said, would surely settle down to a normal life one day. 'What's a normal life anyway, Dad?' That was his response to a lengthy discourse from his father on the certain pitfalls of his unplanned adventures.

'A normal life,' I thought: 'Plain, true, cautiously celebratory or bitterly sarcastic as the need arises'. But I didn't say it. The truth is I wish I'd had the guts at his age to do what he was doing. I gave him the best travel advice I'd heard: Lay out all your clothes and your money, then take half of the clothes and twice the money.

I haven't said much about my husband, Peter. It's not that he's a bad guy - he tries to be helpful - but he's not good at being emotionally supportive. Perhaps there's a gender predisposition to this empathy deficit - my women friends complain often about their husbands' failures in this area, so I shouldn't be surprised. I guess the truth is that throughout our married life I've never really sought his emotional support; I've always looked to my mother and close women friends for that. But time changes many things, and I found myself needing more from him than his offers to fill up my gas tank (though I liked it when he said this naughtily - which, however, wasn't half as often as in the early years). Now I didn't know how to ask him. I think I was afraid it might be too late.

Peter became a workaholic after my mother moved in, maybe to escape her presence and the sometimes awkward questions asked by a woman on the edge of sanity. Or maybe he stayed away to escape his own fears of growing old. My mother's family always told me I looked just like her when she was younger. Perhaps being at home with her and me was too stark a reminder to Peter of the cruel passage of time.

But whatever. There had already been a distance between Peter and me. And this distance grew further when my mother moved in with us.

'Gracie, look at the colour of those cherry blossoms against the blue of the sky,' my mother said.

It was early April and we'd been walking contentedly in silence.

'Your daddy used to pick them by the handful and sprinkle them in the bath for me when we first got married.'

She pointed to an elegant tree, its smooth black branches laden with pink blossoms. Two deaf lovers sat on a bench under the tree signing to each other.

'Isn't it beautiful?'

That night I cried myself to sleep for the first time in a long time.

Over coffee with a friend one morning while Mom was at her Gentle Geriatrics Yoga class, I joked that when it came to business etiquette I'd practically written the book. 'You need to meet Sharon,' my friend said. Sharon was her boss.

Like that, it was arranged, and about a week later I turned up at the appointed place and time: Anne's Café, 9 a.m.

Sharon was already there. She was 30-something and the opposite of what I imagined she'd look like. She was plump, with curly red hair, whereas in my mind editor-types were tall and sylphlike with long, perfectly pH-balanced blonde hair. Sharon was managing editor of a small, but successful publishing house. She had a quiet confidence that was both unnerving and reassuring - unnerving because I was aware of how little I knew about publishing, but reassuring because there was no way I was going to get my book published without a lot of guidance.

It was a rainy Tuesday morning in October, the sort of day that reminded me of my (slightly wild) college years on Canada's west coast. The sky was gray, but not the dark and brooding gray that makes you want to run for cover, and the rain fell gently and steadily, as though it would go on and on. My mind went back to my Blue Bus days, when I waited at the stop with a cigarette in one hand and a book in the other. My hair was cropped short then, and I sang along with every Janis Joplin song they played.

On rainy days, my friends and I hung out at the Black Swan. The Black Swan was a record store cum book store cum coffee shop cum Laundromat cum pawn shop. I mention this because where I met Sharon that first morning was a lot like the Black Swan, and Sharon reminded me of me all those years ago. Her hair wasn't cropped short, and she didn't smoke, but I sensed in her the unselfconscious confidence and ease in her own solitude that I like to think I had then.

The waitress brought me back to the present. Her streaked, too-blonde hair was piled casually on top of her head and her icy blue, heavily made-up eyes were expressionless. 'Want to see a menu or you just having coffee today, ladies?'

'Just coffee for now, thanks,' Sharon said. 'But bring us menus, just in case.'

I'd been depressed for months. My kids had grown and gone, my career was on hold, my husband hadn't looked at me like that for a long time; and my mother's mind was slowly slipping away from her.

'So you're writing a book,' Sharon said. Steam swirled from our cups. I suddenly felt foolish for being there.

'Well, I'd like to. A guide to business etiquette.' I paused. 'But I have no idea where to start, really, or if there's even a place on the shelf for it.' No sense pretending I knew anything about writing a book.

'If you don't do it, you'll never know what might have happened if you did.'

It was what I needed to hear. And I was surprised and pleased when, as we were leaving, Sharon suggested we meet again.

We met every Tuesday for months after that. Mostly we talked about the book; but in time our conversations became more intimate.

'We were so young when we got married.'

It was mid-November and raining. Sharon smiled pensively. It was the first time she had mentioned her husband. 'He wasn't handsome-handsome, but he was my knight in shining armour, you know?'

I had a hard time imagining she'd needed a knight. She was so together, so cool - not unapproachable, but the jeans-wearing, flowered-bag-toting cool you always hoped your children thought you were.

Behind the counter, a tray of cutlery fell with a crash; the waitress swore. She kicked at a fork that had landed in the doorway then bent to pick up the rest. Her hair was scraped into a tight pony-tail and her eyes, void of make-up, proclaimed her frustration. 'Always, always, always when you're already having a sh-tty day.' She said this more to herself than to us and we didn't show that we'd heard her.

'He once said there were only two things he needed to make his life perfect - me and that damned Harley.' Sharon paused and propped her chin on one hand; with the other, she fingered the salt shaker. Then abruptly she smiled, as though remembering an old joke. 'The first time I rode that bike with him, I thought I was a dead woman. I guess he was making sure I'd hold on tight.'

'Goddammit!' came from the kitchen.

'We were constantly daring each other to do crazy things,' Sharon said. 'One day we were riding through the Cascades and he dared me to walk across an overpass and bare my ass over the highway.'

She sighed and became quiet. Looking absentmindedly out the window she added, 'I love it when it rains like this.'

'Me too,' I said. I was getting bored with her fond reminiscences.

'When nobody's looking I love to splash through puddles. I'm sure people think I'm insane, but that's OK. Life's too short to worry about what other people think. Know what I mean?'

I did. But it had been a long time since I'd lived like that.

January began that year as most Januarys do - full of hope and promise. Our family was together for the first time in two years, and my mother enjoyed every moment of it, even sharing, with remarkable clarity, memories of childhood Christmases. Sharon and I continued our get-togethers at Anne's Café, and my book began taking shape.

That month it snowed for eight days straight and a finely granulated powder from a leaden purple sky blanketed the city. It cushioned the sounds of the ringing streets and muffled the bustling sidewalks. Even the trash cans landed quietly on the street side after the garbage trucks drove off with their contents. The sidewalk in front of Anne's Café was in need of shoveling that Tuesday, but the sign said 'Open'.

The waitress with the icy eyes and piled-up hair had evidently had a good Christmas. 'Good morning, ladies! I trust Santa was good to both of you?' She poured the steaming black brew and stood back, beaming. 'I finally heard back from that modeling agency in New York.' She did a hair flip and continued. 'They want me! Can you believe it?'

We both started telling her how wonderful her news was, but she turned on her heels and sashayed back to the kitchen.

'So,' I asked Sharon, 'Did you read anything good over Christmas?'

She had. Books were her passion, along with good food and fine wine. She couldn't imagine doing anything else, she said. 'Can you believe they actually pay me to read? OK, maybe not quite enough for some of the garbage that comes across my desk.' And she laughed.

Sharon loved to laugh. It was written in the lines on her face and the creases at the corners of her eyes. She had 'smiling eyes', and often, when she talked, her green eyes sparkled as if with a delicious secret.

'They want me to come to New York in March.' The waitress had returned to our table. 'I am so excited.' She handed us the menus with a Shakespearean flourish and announced the daily special with Shakespearean flair.

Outside, a snowplow rumbled along the street. We stopped and stared at the dirty white plume shooting out the side of the plow.

After college, Sharon had taken a year off to work as a volunteer at a counselling centre in Kenya. She'd stayed with a family on the outskirts of Mombasa, 'a humbling experience, to say the least'. A little later she admitted sheepishly that one of the things she'd loved about Africa was that it was the one place where men had adored her ample curves.

One cold February morning we got to talking about marriage. Over steaming cappuccinos, I told her about how my marriage to Peter had gone from happy to comfortable to only just bearable. I complained about how my mother's illness, my wayward sons and my joblessness had contributed to its failure.

Sharon listened intently. When I finally stopped, she reached across the table and held my hands in hers. 'It's going to be OK, Grace.'

'Oh sh-t, Sharon,' I said, 'I'm sorry. I've been doing all the talking. What about you? Do you and your husband still go on those crazy motorcycle rides?'

Sharon looked away, for long enough that I thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she said, Paul and I had a son - Jacob.' She paused and compressed her lips. Her shoulders sunk forward. 'Jacob was born with Down's Syndrome. He had a hole in his heart. He was such a joy, such a beautiful, brave boy.' She took a deep breath and pressed her lips together. 'Want to see a picture?' She dug into her handbag and pulled out a small notebook into which she had stuck the photos. Jacob sleeping with a huge brown dog. Jacob with puréed peas all over his face. Jacob in the arms of a leather-jacketed bearded man on a Harley.

I felt a knot tighten in my throat.

'Jacob died just before his first birthday. His little heart just wasn't strong enough.'

'I'm so sorry.' I didn't know what else to say.

'Paul died six months later. The doctors said it was acute viral myocarditis. I think it was a broken heart.'

After that, we sat just there, looking out the window at the white, deserted street. A mangy brown dog loped past Anne's Café.

Then Sharon said something I never forgot.

'You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star. Nietzsche said that.'

Shortly after my book was published, Peter got a good job offer from IBM and we moved to Austin. We found a lovely three-bedroom home in a pleasant suburb with lots of old trees. There are two nice parks in our neighbourhood, and a mall with a huge book store. It's not Anne's Café, but it's all right. I was joyous with disbelief when I saw my book on its shelves.

It takes Peter five minutes to get to work now and he likes his new job. He has taken up model yacht sailing on a pond near our home; he says it helps to clear the clutter.

Three days a week, I take my mother to adult day care. I think we both need it. I make sure to get out of the house on those days, too, even if it's just to walk to the park, or on extra hot days, the mall. When she is at home with me, we spend most mornings puttering around the garden until our favourite soap comes on. It's funny how she can remember the details of General Hospital better than the details of her own life now. Our afternoons are taken up with housework or maybe some baking. My mother always liked baking.

My mother has her good days and bad days. Well, we all do. But even through her dementia I can see glints and glimmers of her love of life. Our time together has allowed me to rediscover life's simpler pleasures.

The boys have settled into normal lives now, with jobs and girlfriends and responsibilities. Sometimes they visit us for long weekends. But mostly we keep in touch over the Internet.

As for Peter and me, our life together is comfortable. He's not exactly my knight in shining armour. But neither is he my bête noire.

Sometimes at night, I lie awake and think of Sharon.

-Corinne Smith