light. For a moment, the whole empty theater seemed to hold its breath with me.
“You mean here?” I asked.
Mom laughed softly. “Where else, honey? You’re always saying we should visit.”
I pressed the phone closer to my ear. “I’d love that.”
“Flights are so expensive now,” she said.
There it was. The hinge in the conversation. The place where love turned toward my wallet.
I closed my eyes.
“I can cover them,” I said.
“Oh, Lena, we couldn’t possibly—”
But she could possibly. She did possibly. Within twenty minutes, I had bought two first-class tickets from Cleveland to Portland, reserved a comfortable rental SUV, and arranged for a driver to meet them at baggage claim because Dad disliked airport parking garages.
I also took the week off.
I never took Thanksgiving week off. Historic buildings do not care about holidays, and donors love deadlines. But I told my supervisor, Simon, that my parents were coming for the first time in years.
He studied my face across the work table. Simon had known me for nine years, long enough to hear the parts of my family story I had tried to make sound funny.
“That’s big,” he said.
“It is.”
“Are you happy?”
I smiled too quickly. “Of course.”
He didn’t argue. He just nodded and said, “Then make it count.”
I planned everything.
I cleaned the guest room and bought new pillows because my mother once complained hotel pillows made her neck hurt. I placed a small reading lamp on Dad’s side of the bed. I stocked ginger tea, low-sodium crackers, the brand of oatmeal he liked, and the lavender hand soap Mom used to keep in our bathroom when I was a child.
I made reservations for a quiet seafood restaurant overlooking the river. I bought tickets to a candlelight concert. I arranged a private walk-through of the Bellweather Theater because Dad had loved old movie houses before television stole his attention span and disappointment stole the rest.
When I texted the itinerary to my mother, she replied with seven heart emojis.
Then, three days before their flight, Marcus called.
“So they’re coming in Thursday?” he asked.
I was in the grocery store, comparing pears for Dad’s tart. “Wednesday at noon.”
“Cool. We’ll grab them from the airport.”
I stopped with a pear in my hand. “No, I arranged a driver. I’m meeting them there.”
“Relax. Mom wants to see the baby as soon as possible. Hannah made this little turkey outfit. It’s hilarious. They can swing by your place after.”
“They’re staying with me.”
There was a pause.
“Did nobody tell you?”
My fingers tightened around the pear.
Marcus sighed, already annoyed by the inconvenience of my feelings. “Mom said your place has too many stairs. Dad gets winded. Our guest suite is on the first floor. Plus it makes more sense with the kid.”
My house had six steps from the porch to the front door. Marcus’s house had a sunken living room, a steep driveway, and a baby gate every four feet.
“Mom didn’t mention it,” I said.
“She probably didn’t want you making a whole thing.”
A whole thing.
That was what my family called any emotion of mine that required them to behave differently.
I left the grocery store with the pears
