They said, stay in the lounge, grandma. We’ll come back for you after check-in. I nodded. Of course I did. That’s what you do when your son gives you an instruction in that clipped, over-patient voice, the one reserved for the elderly, the confused, and the inconvenient. I sat where they told me, next to a dusty potted plant, between a crying toddler and a flickering television tuned to a weather channel.
It was 9.15 a.m. I waited eight hours. I’d packed three days before, laid out every outfit on the bed, like I used to do for Adam’s school trips. The tickets were to Honolulu.
Our big family vacation, as Lisa, my daughter-in-law called it. She’d insisted on matching t-shirts for the kids and me. Mine said, Vacation Nana, in bright pink letters.
I didn’t like it, but I wore it anyway. She’d rolled her eyes at the airport when I brought my own snacks. At the security line, things started to feel off.
Lisa kept glancing at her watch. Adam was unusually quiet. The kids were on their phones.
When the TSA agent asked about seating, Lisa laughed and said, Oh, we’ll sort that later. And that was the last time anyone looked me in the eye. Once we passed security, Lisa turned to me with that same brittle smile.
Mom, why don’t you stay in the lounge? We’ll go ahead to check in the bags, sort the kids’ boarding passes, and then come get you. Just relax. You’ve done enough.
She patted my arm. It wasn’t affection. It was dismissal.
I sat. I waited. I watched them disappear into the crowd.
After an hour, I stood up and paced near the window. After two, I asked the front desk to page Adam. No response.
By the fourth hour, I stopped looking at the entrance. People around me came and went. Flights announced and departed.
The woman across from me had lunch, made two phone calls, and left. I stayed. It wasn’t until 5 p.m. that I asked the clerk at the front for help.
I gave Adam’s full name. She typed, hesitated, and glanced at me carefully. They checked into the 1 45 p.m. flight to Honolulu, ma’am.
It’s already departed. I nodded. Then I asked her to repeat it.
She did. Slowly. Her voice was kind.
I remember that. So that was it. They’d boarded.
Without me. Not by accident. Not a mistake.
I knew my son. He was a lot of things, but careless wasn’t one of them. I stepped into the restroom, locked the stall, sat down.
Not to cry. I didn’t have it in me. I just needed to sit where no one would ask if I was all right.
When I emerged, the airport was shifting into evening mode. The buzz had dimmed. I walked to the departure screen and stared at it.
My hands didn’t shake. My heart didn’t race. I simply looked at the list like a woman looking at options in a diner.
And then I saw it. Portland. 7 35 p.m. I don’t know why I chose Portland.
Maybe because I hadn’t seen it in decades. Maybe because it was where I once learned to ride a bike. Maybe because it was the furthest thing from Hawaii.
I walked to the counter. One ticket to Portland, I said. Tonight.
The young woman hesitated. Round trip? No, just one way. I used my own card, from my own account.
The one Adam didn’t know about. The one I’d kept open since before his wedding. I had just enough for the fare, a motel, and maybe a start.
I didn’t need more. I turned off my phone, no messages, no missed calls. Of course not.
The boarding process was quiet. No one asked why I was traveling alone. No one looked at my shirt.
I’d taken it off and stuffed it in the trash before heading to the gate. On the plane, I watched the lights of the city fall away beneath me. Eight hours ago, I thought I was going to paradise.
Turns out I was just being left behind. But now? Now I was going somewhere real. Somewhere they couldn’t follow.
I landed in Portland just after ten. The airport was quieter than I remembered. Smaller, somehow.
Or maybe it was me who had shrunk, folded inward from the weight of a day like no other. I walked slowly through the terminal, not because of my age, but because I didn’t feel the need to rush anymore. No one was waiting for me.
And for once, that felt like freedom. Outside, the air was damp and sharp. Rain had fallen recently.
It smelled like concrete and pine. I stood under the awning for a minute, just breathing. Then I found a bench and sat down with my carry-on, the same one Adam had mocked for being too old-school.
It was brown leather, worn at the corners, the kind Derek gave me for our 25th anniversary. He would have laughed at what happened today. A deep, knowing laugh.
The kind that said, Well, sweetheart, what did you expect? I didn’t expect this. Not really. But I also wasn’t surprised.
I opened my wallet. Two cards, one I.D., $76 in cash, and a folded piece of paper with an address I hadn’t used in fifty years. 1849 Quint Street.
My first apartment after marrying Derek. I didn’t know if it still existed, I didn’t even know why I’d brought the address with me. But there it was.
I called a cab. The driver was quiet. A blessing.
I gave him the address of a cheap motel I’d looked up before leaving Wilmington, just in case. When we pulled up, I paid without blinking, took my key, and climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor. Room 207.
The hallway smelled like cleaning fluid and tired stories. Inside, the room was small but clean. One bed.
One chair. A TV bolted to the wall. I washed my face in the sink and lay down on the bed in my clothes, the blanket scratchy against my arms.
I slept without dreams. The next morning, I stood at the window watching a woman in a pink robe walk her dog. She looked about my age, though maybe a little stronger in the back.
I made coffee in the little machine on the nightstand and sat in the stiff chair by the window, sipping slowly. No one called. No one texted.
I didn’t check. I had nowhere to be. That was a strange thing to realize.
For decades, my time belonged to others. To Adam. To Derek.
To the grandchildren. Even to the PTA meetings I stopped going to twenty years ago. But now, my time was mine again.
At nine, I left the motel and walked into the neighborhood. My legs ached. My hip was murmuring.
But I kept going. I stopped at a corner bakery and bought a scone. The woman behind the counter smiled when I handed over exact change.