My Family Refused to Pick Me up from the Airport – They Never Expected to See What I Had Prepared on the Evening News the Next Day
“They’re still our children.”
“You knew Dad was sick, Mom. This wasn’t exactly unexpected. You can get home by yourself.”
I set the phone in my lap. Rain streaked the tall glass windows.
I thought of Henry, who every morning of our married life slipped a small sealed envelope into the inside pocket of his coat before he left for work.
“Bills,” he would say, patting the pocket. “I’ll drop them at the post office.”
I never asked. In forty years, I never once asked.
Henry saw. I chose not to see.
He had been a quiet man who kept his hands folded when he prayed and never raised his voice. Not even the last time he told me what he thought of our children.
“They take us for granted, Eleanor.”
“They’re still our children,” I had said.
He had only nodded. He never argued with me, not once.
I remembered how the birthdays had thinned over the years, how the phone rang only when Jason needed the down payment or Melissa needed a sitter. Henry saw. I chose not to see.
Then I remembered the call.
A taxi driver tapped on the glass and pointed at my empty hands.
“No bag, ma’am?”
