I did not know, when I bought it, that my son was about to make the decision for me.
The morning after he asked me to leave, I called my agent.
“The Willow Creek house,” I said. “I’m not going to rent it out. I’m going to live in it. How quickly can we make it ready?”
“It’s vacant and it’s yours, Mrs. Calloway,” she said. “You could move in this week.”
Six days. That’s all it took. Six days after my son asked me when I was finally going to find somewhere else to live, I moved into the most beautiful house he had ever wanted, and I did it without him knowing a thing.
I spent those six days quietly. I had a moving company pack my few real belongings, the things that were actually mine, George’s photographs, my grandmother’s quilt, my gardening tools. I left behind everything Todd and Megan had “let” me use.
