PART 2: The One-Way Ticket
After the meal, I went to wash my hands in the downstairs bathroom. A framed sign hung above the towel rack: “Family Is Everything.”
I stood there reading it. I thought about the money I’d given toward Derek’s truck, the apartment lease I’d co-signed years ago, and the bills I’d quietly paid whenever he said things were tight. I had helped because he was my child, not to buy gratitude. Still, standing there, I couldn’t remember the last time he had asked what I wanted.
Back in the kitchen, I served pumpkin pie, packed leftovers, and wiped down the counters. Cassandra was talking about her possible Christmas guest list when I finally reached for my coat. “I’ll send you the guest count tomorrow,” she called from the dining room.
I didn’t answer. I hugged the grandchildren and kissed Derek’s cheek. I reminded him to drive carefully when he took the kids skating the next morning. Then I headed home.
By the time I reached Raleigh, the highway was dark. Houses glittered with Christmas lights, but my mind kept going back to that New Zealand photo. I remembered the cold wind on my cheeks and the sudden, startling feeling that nobody needed me anywhere else.
At home, I carried in my overnight bag, put the kettle on, and opened my laptop. I started with my bank statements. There were payments I had stopped seeing: streaming subscriptions, a storage unit, regular transfers to Derek, and small favors I’d paid for whenever someone asked. Each one seemed minor. Together, they added up to hundreds of dollars a month.
Next, I looked at the savings account holding the money from selling the house Leonard and I had shared. For years I had guarded it for some future emergency. But I was sixty-three, and I had already lived through an emergency that upended my whole life. I knew the future doesn’t promise us all the years we picture.
I opened a folder on my computer labeled “Places to Go.” It held pictures of Italian villages, Irish cottages, and Greek seaside apartments. One listing had pulled me back again and again. It was a furnished little house in Óbidos, Portugal, with white walls, blue shutters, and a private courtyard on an old stone lane.
I had bookmarked it eleven months earlier. Now I checked the calendar and found an eight-week opening starting in December. My heart beat faster. I read the cancellation policy, compared the price with my travel savings, and looked through the photos one more time. Then I typed in my credit card number.
The confirmation popped up. Eight weeks in Portugal. I sat staring at the screen, hardly believing how quickly something I had dreamed about for almost a year had become real. I hadn’t needed to convince anyone. I only had to decide I was allowed to go. This wasn’t for Derek or Cassandra or anyone else who needed me. It was entirely mine. On the airline’s website, I found a flight to Lisbon and bought a one-way ticket. I planned to come back after the eight weeks, but I wanted to choose my own return date. I printed the itinerary and set it beside my mug.
Close to midnight, Derek texted. “Cassie says we should start planning Christmas before everything gets booked.” I looked from his message to my flight confirmation. For once, I felt no urge to rearrange my life. I wrote carefully: “You should make whatever arrangements work for your family. I won’t be cooking Christmas dinner this year.”
I set the phone beside my Portugal ticket. Within two minutes, it buzzed. “What do you mean you’re not cooking Christmas? Is something wrong?” The printer’s green light blinked while I read it. In the past, I would have apologized right away, explained everything, and offered three ways to keep anyone from being inconvenienced. This time I wrote, “I’m making other plans this year. We can talk tomorrow.” Then I turned off the kitchen light and went upstairs.
I slept badly. Around three, I wondered whether Portugal was too much, whether I’d made a terrible mistake, whether I was overreacting to one comment at dinner. Then I pictured Derek staring at his plate. By breakfast, I had stopped thinking about canceling.
He called a little after nine while I was making toast. “Mom, what’s going on? Cassie says you’re upset about something she said yesterday.”
“She made a joke about my entire personality being cooking and cleaning,” I said. “I didn’t find it funny.”
Derek sighed. “Mom, you know how Cassie is. She says things without thinking.” “I know. I’ve been listening to her do it for eight years.” “She didn’t mean anything by it.” “Then why didn’t you say something?” There was a long silence. “What was I supposed to say?”
Outside my window stood the bare dogwood Leonard had planted beside our first home. He had taught the children that character shows in what you do when no one is rewarding you. “You could have said I was more than the woman who cooks your dinners,” I told him.
“You’re making this bigger than it needs to be,” he said, sounding defensive. “Maybe I’ve been making it smaller than it is for too long.” After another pause, he asked, “So who’s supposed to handle Christmas?” I closed my eyes. “Derek, you’re forty years old. You have a wife, a kitchen, and a grocery store ten minutes from your house. I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”
He said he’d call later. I could tell he was still thinking mostly about the problem of dinner, not the hurt behind my decision. That stung, but it also kept me clear about why things had to change. After we hung up, my hands were trembling. I sat over cold toast, wondering why saying no to one unwanted job felt harder than planning two months abroad.
That afternoon, I called Joanna, my thirty-seven-year-old daughter, a physical therapist in Durham. She is practical, and far less likely than Derek to assume I could fix everything just because I usually did. When I told her about Thanksgiving, she went quiet. “Mom, I wish you’d told me how things had gotten over there.” “I didn’t want to make trouble between you and your brother.” “You’re allowed to be unhappy without it becoming family trouble.” Then I told her about Portugal. She laughed so loudly I had to hold the phone away. “Mom! You actually booked it?” “I did.” “Good. Finally.” “You’re not worried about me traveling alone?” “You went to New Zealand by yourself. You know how to get on an airplane.” She paused. “Besides, you spent my whole childhood telling me I could do things even when they scared me. I think it’s time you listened to yourself.” I cried a little. It wasn’t that she said anything profound. It was that she was simply happy I had chosen something for myself.
Over the next few days, I went through the financial help I had been quietly giving Derek and Cassandra. I didn’t want to punish them or leave them unable to pay their bills. I just wanted to know how much of my retirement had become part of their household budget. Three years earlier, I had agreed to cover a storage unit temporarily during their move, and I was still paying it. I emailed Derek a clear list of the recurring payments. I explained that I would finish the current billing cycle, but starting in January, he and Cassandra would need to take them over. He wrote back that night: “Mom, why are you suddenly doing all this?” I answered, “Because I need to start managing my retirement around my own plans.”
Two days later, Cassandra sent a Christmas menu for sixteen guests: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, rolls, and three desserts. My name was written beside it. At the bottom she’d added, “Let me know if you need anything picked up.” I replied, “Cassandra, I won’t be preparing Christmas dinner this year. I’ve booked an extended trip and will be out of the country.” “Out of the country?” “Yes. I’m going to Portugal.” The typing dots appeared, disappeared, and came back. “At Christmas?” “Yes.” Finally: “But we already invited everyone.” I sipped my tea. “I’m sure you’ll still have a lovely gathering. You’ll just need to make different arrangements for the food.” She didn’t answer.
That evening, Derek called again, sounding confused rather than annoyed. “Mom, are you seriously leaving the country for two months?” “That’s the plan.” “Why didn’t you tell us you were thinking about doing something like that?” “Because every time I mentioned traveling, somebody needed me to watch the dog, help with a project, or be available for something. I got tired of waiting for a convenient time.” “We would have worked something out.” “Maybe. But I’ve already worked it out.” He asked if I’d be around for the kids’ school holiday events. I told him I would see the grandchildren before I left and had already bought their gifts. “I want to keep being their grandmother, Derek,” I said. “I just don’t want that to mean I’m permanently on call.”
The next week flew by. I checked my passport, bought travel insurance, booked a ride from Lisbon, and finished my doctor’s appointments. Ellen, my seventy-one-year-old neighbor of nearly twenty years, offered to collect the mail and keep an eye on the house. “Eight weeks in Portugal? Diane, that’s the best thing I’ve heard all month,” she said, pulling off her gardening gloves. Into my suitcase went walking shoes, watercolors, a travel journal, and the camera Leonard gave me for our twentieth anniversary. I also packed his old gray sweater, oversized and frayed at the cuffs. I had taken it on every important trip since he died.
Three days before I left, Derek showed up after lunch without calling first. He stood stiffly in my kitchen while I folded clothes at the table, his eyes moving from me to the open suitcase. His jaw was tight in a way I recognized from when he was a boy working up to something hard. “I wanted to talk before you left,” he said.
