Not one.
I was sixty-nine years old.
And I suddenly had the frightening realization that if I continued living that way, I might reach eighty and discover that I had spent the entire second half of my life waiting for permission to live.
That afternoon, I opened my laptop.
I searched flights.
Australia.
Japan.
Italy.
France.
Thailand.
For the first time, I didn’t ask anybody whether I was allowed.
I simply booked the ticket.
My children were furious.
Karen came to my house and stood in the kitchen with her arms crossed.
“You can’t just leave.”
“I can.”
“What about the boys?”
“They have parents.”
She stared at me.
“You’ve never talked like this before.”
“I know.”
David was worse.
“You’re wasting money.”
“It’s my money.”
“You could leave it to us.”
I looked at him.
“I thought you’d say that.”
Eric was the one who surprised me.
He stood near the front door and said,
“That house was supposed to stay in the family.”
I looked around the living room.
The furniture.
The photographs.
The walls Robert and I had painted.
The dining table where our children had grown up.
Then I looked back at my son.
“It was my house.”
