The cost came to just over thirty thousand dollars for the whole trip, and my father, sitting at Grandma’s kitchen table with the same casual ease he’d once used to ask her for a loan on a business expansion, suggested she might want to contribute toward it, since it was, after all, a trip built around celebrating her and Grandpa’s whole life together.
She paid without a moment’s hesitation. I remember her telling me about it afterward, genuinely delighted, genuinely moved that her children wanted to do this for her, for all of them together, one last real family memory while she still had the health and the years left to make new ones.
I remember feeling happy for her. I want that on the record, because it makes what happened next land differently, understanding that none of us, including me, saw it coming until we were standing in the middle of it.
