David took longer.
Then Eric finally said,
“I guess I thought the house meant you’d always be there.”
I laughed softly.
“I’m still your mother. I’m just not your furniture.”
Even Eric laughed at that.
Arthur and I continued talking every day.
Six months later, I returned to Australia.
Not because Robert had somehow sent me there.
Not because my children had pushed me away.
I returned because I wanted to.
Arthur met me at the airport holding a small cardboard sign.
ABIGAIL — COFFEE STILL OWED!
I laughed until I cried.
I still travel now.
Sometimes with Arthur.
Sometimes alone.
The painting hangs in the small apartment Arthur and I share part of the year.
Beside it is Robert’s letter.
And below them is the receipt from the first coffee Arthur bought me after I returned.
Exactly twelve dollars.
At sixty-nine, I thought selling my house meant walking away from the life I had built.
I was wrong.
I was finally walking into the part of my life I had spent decades postponing.
And halfway around the world, I found a piece of the man I had loved—
and a future I had never expected.
For the first time in my life, “someday” was no longer waiting for me.
I was already there.
