Chapter 1 - The Frantic Midnight Phone Call Demanding I Reverse My Christmas Decision
My finger hovered over the blue send arrow on my phone screen for perhaps three seconds before I pressed it.
The message delivered instantly.
Outside my living room window, the quiet Raleigh street was dark and still, washed in the silver glow of a crescent moon.
Inside, the tea kettle had gone cold, but for the first time in thirty years, the house didn't feel lonely; it felt peacefully, extraordinarily mine.
I set the phone on the coffee table beside my printed flight itinerary to Lisbon.
Four minutes later, the screen lit up with an incoming call.
Derek.
I let it ring three times before sliding the green bar across the glass and lifting it to my ear.
“Mom?” Derek’s voice was high, sharp, and laden with the nervous irritation he usually reserved for delayed contractors. “What does that text mean? Cassie just showed it to me.”
“It means exactly what it says, Derek,” I replied, my voice calm, level, and entirely devoid of the habitual apologies I used to smooth over awkward moments. “I won't be cooking Christmas dinner this year.”
A heavy, exasperated breath blew through the receiver.
“Mom, come on. If this is about what Cassie said at the table, she was kidding. You know how she talks. She has that dry sense of humor. Everybody was laughing.”
“I wasn't laughing, Derek.”
“Well, you're taking it way too personally!” he insisted, his voice rising in that petulant, familiar way that had worked on me since he was fourteen years old. “We’ve already invited eighteen people. Her parents are coming from Asheville. Her sister’s in-laws booked a hotel in Uptown. You always do the ham, the prime rib, and the pies. You can’t just back out four weeks before the holiday.”
“I’m not backing out of an obligation, Derek. I never agreed to host or cater your party.”
“You do it every year!”
“And this year, I am doing something else.”
Silence hung over the line for several seconds, heavy with his disbelief.
“Doing what?” he demanded. “Sitting alone in your house being stubborn?”
I looked down at the paper beside my teacup: TAP Air Portugal — Flight 114 — Depart RDU Dec 12.
“I’ve rented a cottage in Portugal for two months,” I told him softly. “I leave in twelve days.”
“You did what?” Derek practically shouted. “Portugal? Are you out of your mind? Who is going to watch Buster while we go to the mountains for New Year's? What about the corporate brunch Cassie is hosting on the twentieth?”
There it was.
Not Are you alright?
Not Where are you staying?
Just the sudden, furious realization that the free domestic machinery that kept their lifestyle running smoothly had abruptly stopped functioning.
May you like
“You’ll need to make other arrangements, Derek,” I said.
“Mom, you can’t afford an eight-week international vacation right now,” Derek snapped, his tone shifting into cold, condescending authority. “You’re on a fixed retirement budget. Have you even looked at your secondary investment accounts this month?”
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