She said, “Mom, you’re turning 70. We want to celebrate you.” I booked the flight. Landed at LAX. Then I saw…
They said they wanted to celebrate me. My daughter’s voice was bright on the phone, almost musical. “Mom, you’re turning 70. That’s huge. We want to throw you a party, a real one.” So I believed her.
I booked the ticket. I packed my good dress—the navy one with the pearl buttons. I packed hope, carefully folded, pressed between tissue paper and reasonable expectations. And then I landed at LAX, pulled my suitcase through the terminal, and stood outside arrivals for forty-three minutes before I understood.
Before I pulled out my phone and saw the Instagram story.
All of them, wine glasses raised, vineyard backdrop, caption: girls trip goals. No party. No me.
It started three weeks earlier. I was sitting at my kitchen table in Phoenix, tea going cold, when my phone rang. My daughter, Jessica—she doesn’t call often. Usually she texts, short ones. Busy day or kids are crazy LOL. So when I saw her name, my first thought was: something’s wrong.
“Mom. Hey.” Her voice had that practiced cheerfulness.
“I’m fine, honey. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s great. Actually, I was calling because Brad and I were talking and we realized your birthday’s coming up.” I set down my tea. “Seventy is a big one, Mom. You should celebrate.”
I smiled into the phone. I was thinking I’d make myself a nice dinner. Maybe invite Carol from next door.
“No, no, no,” Jessica said. “We want to do something special. What if you came here to California? We could throw you a party.”
My heart did something strange. A small jump. “A party?”
“Yeah. Nothing huge. Just family. Maybe some of Brad’s parents, the kids. We could do it the weekend of your actual birthday. What do you think?”
I thought about the last time I’d been invited to something. Really invited, not tolerated. It had been years. Christmas two years ago, maybe—and even then Jessica had said, “If you’re not too tired from traveling.”
“I think that sounds lovely,” I told her.
“Perfect. Book a flight. Let me know when you land. We’ll pick you up.”
After we hung up, I sat there for a long time. The kitchen window showed my small backyard, the palo verde tree dropping its tiny yellow flowers onto the patio. I’d lived in this house alone for six years since Robert died. The silence had become a companion—familiar, mostly bearable.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
TAP → NEXT PAGE → 👇
