Douglas pointed toward the brochure.
“We just remembered Dad talking about it.”
“You can throw it away,” Brenda said. “Or go somewhere else. Or stay home.”
I looked again at the photographs.
Bright tiled buildings.
A river beneath an old bridge.
Tables beneath umbrellas.
A coastline Robert had once circled in a travel magazine.
I began to cry.
Paisley climbed into my lap.
“Grandma?”
“I’m happy, sweetheart.”
“You cry when you’re happy?”
“Sometimes.”
“That seems inefficient.”
Everyone laughed.
I folded the brochure.
“I think I’d like to go.”
Brenda smiled.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
I looked around the table.
“I haven’t decided.”
And she did not ask again.
That was her Christmas gift to me.
In April, I flew to Portugal.
Alone.
At least technically.
I carried Robert’s old travel notebook in my purse.
On the first evening in Lisbon, I sat at a little outdoor table beneath strings of lights and ordered something I could barely pronounce.
