After A Major Storm Damaged My Home, My Daughter Said, “Just Stay In Your Car A Little Longer – I’m Busy.” So I Did. Now, Months Later, I Live In My Own Beautiful Home. When She And Her Husband Showed Up With Moving Boxes, Saying, “It’s Perfect For Our Nursery,”

My phone had been mercifully quiet for days after I’d stopped responding to Jane’s increasingly frantic messages. But this morning, as I sat with my coffee watching Sharon deadhead her roses, it rang with Jane’s number. “Mom, thank God.

I’ve been worried sick.”

“I’m fine, Jane. Just settling in.”

“Settling in? What do you mean settling in?

You can’t just disappear to California and expect us not to worry. Emma keeps asking where grandma went.”

The mention of Emma sent a familiar pang through my chest. My granddaughter’s sweet face.

Her delight in simple games and bedtime stories. But even that love had been filtered through Jane’s convenience—visits scheduled around her social calendar, interactions monitored for signs that I might be staying too long or expecting too much. “How is Emma?” I asked.

“She’s fine, but that’s not the point. The point is you running away instead of dealing with reality. “Frank and I have been talking, and we think you should come home immediately.

“This whole California thing is just escapism.”

Frank and I have been talking. As if Frank’s opinion about my life mattered. As if the man who’d made me feel unwelcome in my own daughter’s home had any right to judge my choices.

“What reality am I avoiding exactly?”

“You can’t just play house in some dead woman’s home and pretend your real life doesn’t exist. You have responsibilities here. Family here.”

Continue reading…