Chapter 3 - The Highway Stand-off
The taxi arrived at seven-forty-eight.
It didn't simply arrive; it slid into the asphalt driveway sideways, the rear tires spraying gray limestone gravel into the rhododendron bushes Charles had planted twenty years ago. The rear passenger door flew open before the vehicle had completely stopped, its metal edge striking the wooden post of the mailbox with a hollow, ugly *thunk*.
Tori erupted from the cab like steam from an overcooked pressure cooker. She hadn't even checked her bags; her carry-on was slung over one shoulder, her trench coat flapping unbelted around her knees, her phone gripped in her fist like a weapon.
Behind her, Caleb crawled out of the front passenger seat. He didn't look like a junior partner at an investment firm. He looked like a man who had spent forty minutes sitting next to a detonating landmine in the back of a Lincoln Town Car.
"Inside," Tori commanded, pointing a French-manicured fingernail at the house. "Both of you. Right now."
Eli didn't move from the porch steps. He was sitting on the second riser, his long legs folded like a cricket's, peeling the bark off a twig he'd picked up from the lawn. When his mother swept past him, he simply tucked his chin into his fleece and said nothing.
Tori kicked the front door open with the heel of her boot. "Myrna!"
I was sitting in Charles’s leather armchair in the sitting room, my coat over my arm, my passport wallet tucked neatly into my cross-body bag. On the small mahogany side table, my cup of Earl Grey was empty, the spoon resting precisely across the rim of the saucer.
"You don't need to shout, Tori. The acoustics in this house are quite adequate."
She marched across the Oriental rug, her face mottled with red blotches beneath her foundation. "We missed the bag drop. The flight is closed. The vouchers are void. Do you have any idea what those tickets cost? Do you have any earthly conception of what Caleb's schedule looks like for the next six months?"
"I know what my schedule looks like," I said, checking my wristwatch. "The shuttle to the regional terminal will be here in nineteen minutes."
"Cancel it!" she screamed.
Finn crept into the hallway, dragging Chloe’s rabbit by its foot. Maggie was sitting behind the sofa, singing a low, tuneless song to herself about a dead beetle she had discovered under the radiator.
"Cancel it?" I looked up at her, letting my gaze drift slowly from her manicured hair down to the expensive leather boots that had just tracked gravel across my hall. "Why would I cancel a trip I planned eight months ago to accommodate two adults who couldn't be bothered to give me forty-eight hours of notice?"
Caleb appeared in the sitting room doorway. He looked sick. His collar was undone, his tie crooked. "Mom... please. We had no choice. The credits were expiring. If we didn't use the firm's partner discount by midnight last night, the whole package vanished. We thought—"
"You didn't think, Caleb," I said, cutting him off without raising my voice. "You presumed. There is an enormous moral difference between the two."
"You're retired!" Tori shouted, throwing her hands in the air. "You sit here! You read books! You deadhead geraniums! What difference does it make if you go to Italy this week or next April?"
The room went very cold. Even Finn stopped dragging the rabbit.
I stood up. I may be five feet four inches tall and seventy-one years old, but I was raised by a woman who had run three hundred acres of dairy farm after my grandfather’s tractor rolled over in nineteen-sixty. When I stand up with intent, people generally step backward. Tori, to her credit, only blinked.
"The difference, Victoria, is that my life does not belong to you."
"We give you everything," Tori spat, though her eyes darted toward the hallway where Eli was now standing, watching her through the open door. "We include you in Thanksgiving. We bring the kids over every single Easter—"
"You bring the kids over when your cleaning service is scheduled," I replied evenly. "You include me on Thanksgiving when you need a second oven for the dressing and someone to wipe the wine spills off the marble counters while you talk about your quarterly billables with your sister. For seven years, since Charles died, you have treated this house as an overflow parking lot for your convenience."
"Mom," Caleb groaned, covering his eyes with his hand. "Don't do this here. Not in front of them."
"They have ears, Caleb. They also have brains, though you treat them as if they are luggage that can be checked at the curb without a receipt."
A horn sounded from the driveway.
A clean, sharp *beep-beep*.
The blue shuttle van had pulled in behind the taxi.
"That's my car," I said, slipping my arms into my coat sleeves.
Tori didn't move. She planted herself directly in the middle of the hallway, her arms crossed over her chest, her jaw set into a concrete line. "You're not leaving this house, Myrna. If you walk out that door, you are abandoning your grandchildren."
"Their father is standing five feet behind you," I said, lifting the handle of my green suitcase. "He is thirty-six years old. He has two hands, a driver's license, and an American Express black card. If he cannot manage to care for his own offspring for fourteen days without his mother holding his bib, then you should spend less time worrying about Tokyo and more time worrying about the quality of the man you married."
I moved forward. Tori didn't budge.
"Excuse me," I said.
"No," she hissed.
I didn't argue. I didn't push her. I simply reached over to the hall console table, picked up the brass handbell Charles used to ring when dinner was ready on the patio, and rang it directly next to her left ear with one sharp, deafening *clink*.
Tori flinched, her hands flying to her ears in sheer shock.
I stepped around her, wheeled my bag across the threshold, and walked down the steps.
The morning air was damp and cold, smelling of pine needles and wet pavement. The shuttle driver, an elderly Black gentleman named Arthur who had driven Charles and me to the airport half a dozen times, hopped out of the cab with a broad grin.
"Morning, Mrs. Miller! Rome today, right?"
"Rome today, Arthur," I said.
Behind me, the front door remained wide open. Eli was still sitting on the porch steps. He didn't look angry. In fact, as I turned to look back at the house, a slow, thin smile crept across his teenage face—the first genuine smile I had seen on that boy since his twelfth birthday.
"Eli," I called out.
"Yeah, Grandma?"
"The emergency freezer meal is a shepherd's pie. Bake it at three-fifty for fifty minutes. Don't let your mother turn on the microwave; it makes the crust soggy."
"Got it," he said.
Caleb ran out onto the porch, his face pale as lard. "Mom! What are we supposed to do? The flights are canceled! The work coverage is set! We took the leave!"
I stopped with my hand on the shuttle door. I looked at my son—my only child—the boy I had walked through measles, algebra, and his first broken heart.
"You took two weeks off from work, Caleb?"
He nodded desperately. "Yes! The whole firm knows we're away!"
"Then I suggest," I said, stepping up into the van, "that you take your children to the park. I hear it's free, open seven days a week, and requires absolutely no reservation."
May you like
Arthur slammed the door shut. The diesel engine roared, the transmission clicked into gear, and the shuttle pulled out past the gravel drive, leaving my son, his wife, and four children standing on the front lawn under the gray morning sky.
***
