Chapter 9 - The Dutch Apple Pie
In May of the following year, the annual Pella Tulip Time festival arrived.
The town was filled with tens of thousands of tourists admiring the hundreds of thousands of blooming tulips that lined the streets. The historic home on Franklin Street—now fully restored and operating as "The Van Doren House Bed & Breakfast"—was featured on the front page of the Des Moines Register as one of the premier lodging locations in central Iowa.
I drove down to Pella on Saturday afternoon, not to visit my family, but to meet Ruth Becker for lunch at a small café near the town square.
As we sat on the outdoor patio eating Dutch pastries, Ruth looked across the street and pointed discreetly.
"Look who's there," Ruth whispered.
I turned my head. Walking along the sidewalk was my mother, carrying a small canvas shopping bag. She looked smaller, her shoulders slightly stooped, as she navigated the crowd of tourists. Beside her walked my father, leaning heavily on a wooden cane.
They looked like an ordinary retired couple enjoying the afternoon. There was no grandeur left, no church elder pomp, no pretense of ancestral wealth. Just two elderly people living within their actual means in a modest apartment on the edge of town.
Tyler was no longer living in Pella. According to Ruth, he had taken a job as a long-haul truck driver three months earlier, spending weeks at a time on the road, rarely returning home.
My mother stopped near the edge of the square, her eyes scanning the patio of the café. For a brief second, our eyes met across the crowded street.
Mom froze. She clutched her canvas bag tightly against her chest.
I didn't glare. I didn't turn away in anger. I simply offered her a gentle, polite nod of recognition—the kind of nod you give to an old acquaintance you used to know long ago.
Mom stared at me for several seconds, her lips trembling slightly. Then, slowly, she nodded back, a faint, sad smile touching her lips before my father pulled her arm to keep walking toward the bakery.
"Do you ever regret selling it?" Ruth asked softly, taking a sip of her iced coffee.
I looked across the square at the blooming red and yellow tulips swaying in the warm spring breeze. I thought about the wet jeans, the kicked purse, the yellow SIGN HERE tabs, and the forty-two thousand dollars drained from my bank account.
May you like
Then I thought about my bright townhouse in Des Moines, my career, my peace of mind, and the absolute freedom of living a life where nobody demanded I make myself smaller so someone else could feel tall.
"No, Ruth," I said, smiling as I picked up my fork. "Selling that house was the best investment I ever made."
