When we arrived, Clara wasn’t home, so Grandma Ruth called her from the car. Clara said she was at the store and told her to use the spare key under the flowerpot on the windowsill.
When Noah and I graduated high school, I asked Clara if she’d come.
“You’re adults now, Eric. It isn’t my responsibility anymore,” she said.
“It’s one afternoon, Clara.”
So we did. We packed our bags, started college, and built careers from nothing. Noah became an engineer. I went into design. Clara called maybe twice a year, mostly to remind us how much she’d given up.
And yet, yesterday, I was pulling into her driveway with lilies and a wrapped gift box for her 60th birthday.
“Maybe people change,” I told myself, killing the engine.
I climbed the porch steps. The front door was unlocked. I stepped inside without a sound, slipping off my shoes the way Clara had drilled into us when we were boys.
