“You could have asked me,” I said.
“I know.”
“But you didn’t.”
He stared down at the parking lot. “Because I thought you’d say no.”
That was the first honest thing anyone had said since I walked through my door.
I nodded slowly. “So you took my answer away.”
Alex’s eyes filled with something like shame, but before he could speak, Jenna opened the balcony door.
“There you are,” she said, too brightly. “We need to go over seating for the rehearsal dinner.”
She looked at me as if the conversation between my son and me had been an inconvenience she was gracious enough to interrupt.
The next few days blurred into one long invasion.
Lorraine bought dish towels with little blue flowers and hung them over my oven handle, replacing the plain white ones David liked because they absorbed better. Carl started taking business calls at my dining table, telling people, “We’re between places right now,” as if my home were a hotel lobby. Tyler ate on my couch and left plates under the coffee table. Mia used my guest bathroom as a salon, leaving hair products along the sink and damp towels on the floor.
Jenna moved through the condo with the confidence of someone already editing a life she planned to inherit.
She suggested new curtains. A brighter rug. A sectional sofa instead of my two armchairs. She wanted to “open up” the dining area, which meant moving the hutch David refinished by hand. She said the balcony could be beautiful with string lights, as if the pot of basil and the two old chairs out there were not already beautiful to me.
I kept waiting for Alex to step in.
He never did.
He apologized in little ways instead. He brought me tea. He squeezed my shoulder when Jenna wasn’t looking. He said, “Just a few more days, Mom,” in the hallway as if time could make disrespect expire on its own.
On the sixth day before the wedding, I heard the scrape of furniture across the living room floor.
I came out of the small room and found Lorraine standing in front of my wall with a tape measure stretched between both hands. Jenna stood beside her with a phone raised, taking pictures. Carl was moving my side table. Tyler had removed the framed graduation photo of Alex from the wall and set it face down on the couch.
My voice sounded far away. “What are you doing?”
Lorraine glanced back. “Seeing what we can do with the space.”
“Why is Alex’s picture down?”
Jenna smiled. “Just testing. We thought a larger print from the wedding would look better there after.”
“After what?”
She paused.
Not long, but long enough.
“After the wedding,” she said.
I looked at the measuring tape. The moved table. My son’s photograph face down on the couch. The way everyone avoided my eyes except Jenna.
I walked to the couch and picked up the frame. Alex was twenty-two in the photo, wearing a black graduation gown, his arm around me, David standing on the other side with pride written all over his face. David died nine months later. That photograph was the last formal picture of the three of us.
Jenna looked at the frame in my hands. “We can make new memories, Maggie.”
I turned to her.
“My old ones are not in your way.”
For the first time, Jenna’s expression hardened.
“Nobody said they were.”
Lorraine sighed. “This is why change is so difficult for older people. Everything feels personal.”
“Because it is my home.”
Jenna lowered her phone. “And it’s going to be Alex’s home too.”
The room went still.
Carl stopped moving the side table. Tyler looked up from the couch. Mia appeared at the hallway entrance, mascara wand in one hand. Lorraine’s eyes flicked toward her daughter.
Alex was not in the room.
“What did you say?” I asked.
Jenna’s chin lifted. “I mean eventually. We talked about it. You don’t want to be alone forever. Alex is your only son. It makes sense to build something together.”
“Build something,” I repeated.
“Mom thinks after the wedding we should all stay here until we find the right place,” Jenna said. “Not forever. Just until things settle.”
Lorraine added quickly, “It would help everyone. You included.”