July 2088. Jordan Graham is 28, Milo and Felix are 9. Colette Marin is 31.
previously: Jordan doesn’t want to rock the boat?
The big wedding had been postponed, so the entire staff at Coolidge House Country Inn got a surprise two weeks off. Why did that make Jordan feel like an animal whose cage had been left open? The boys were on summer vacation and he had an idea. He also had a nagging suspicion that two weeks would not be enough to scratch this itch. But it was what he had, so he posed the wild idea to their mom.
“I want to take the boys backpacking in Canada.”
And Colette replied, with a patronizing chuckle, “Good luck with that.”
The boys were nine, and their mother was a snobby, opinionated, control freak. But she didn’t say no. He was surprised, but also not. She did this sometimes, when she knew her razor sharp attitude had run away from her for too long, she offered a little peace treaty, to say, “Remember that time I let you take the boys backpacking in Canada? Remember that?”
And she would remind him of that small grace for the rest of his life.
