Some things should not be filed.
That summer, I flew to Chicago for the first time since moving west.
Alone.
Daniel offered to come.
I said no.
He did not argue.
I walked through Oak Park and passed the building where Arthur and I had lived.
Someone had planted red flowers near the entrance.
I drank coffee at our old café.
Visited two friends.
Walked farther than Daniel probably would have liked.
Took a nap when I was tired.
And realized that was the whole point.
I could rest because I chose to rest.
Not because someone had decided I was too old to go.
When I returned to Arizona, Jack and Emily met me at the airport with Rebecca.
Emily waved a sign.
WELCOME HOME GRANDMA.
The same words that had hung over my bedroom door four years earlier.
But this time they meant something different.
Home was not their house.
