“Mom?”
“Yes?”
He glanced at the woman’s case.
“She says she’s a notary.”
“I know.”
Jessica gave a small laugh.
“A notary?”
Nobody else spoke.
She looked at me.
“On Thanksgiving?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
I descended the final stair.
“That doesn’t concern you, Jessica.”
Her face changed.
Just slightly.
But I saw it.
So did David.
He turned toward me.
“What are you signing, Mom?”
I looked directly into my son’s eyes.
And for the first time in thirty-six years, I did not soften the truth to make it easier for him.
“You’ll know soon enough.”
Three weeks earlier, David had arrived at my house carrying two coffees and a gray folder.
That alone should have warned me.
David did not visit without Jessica very often anymore.
He was thirty-six years old, handsome in the clean-cut way Richard had been handsome at that age, with sandy brown hair beginning to thin slightly at the temples.
When I opened the door, he smiled.
“Peace offering.”
“For what?”
He handed me the coffee.
“For being a terrible son who doesn’t visit his mother enough.”
I laughed.
That was how easy it was then.
One smile.
One joke.
And I was already forgiving something he had not even apologized for.
We sat at the kitchen table.
For twenty minutes, we talked about ordinary things.
His work.
A neighbor who had moved.
Jessica’s plans for Christmas.
Then David placed the gray folder between us.
“I wanted your opinion about something.”
Inside were photographs of my house.
Not family photographs.
Real estate photographs pulled from public listings of houses in the neighborhood.
There were estimated property values, recent comparable sales, tax assessments, and handwritten calculations.
I stared at the first page.
“What is this?”
“Nothing dramatic.”
“You researched my house?”
“Mom.”
He leaned back.
“Don’t make it weird.”
I looked at him.
“I asked a question.”
David sighed.
“Fine. Jessica and I have been talking.”
Of course.
Jessica and David had been “talking” quite a lot about my property lately.
Why did I need four bedrooms?
Why maintain such a large yard?
Wasn’t the staircase inconvenient?
Wasn’t the neighborhood becoming expensive?
Wouldn’t I prefer a condominium?
A community where someone else handled landscaping?
A smaller place?
Something “more practical”?
The conversations always sounded concerned if you ignored where they eventually ended.
Money.
That afternoon David stopped pretending.
“Our lease expires in March,” he said. “And we’ve been looking at houses.”
“Good.”
“The problem is the market.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Anything decent is expensive.”
I took a sip of coffee.
“I imagine.”
He tapped the folder.
