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“I’m so worried about your father.” She walked into my kitchen, and I followed her. “Ever since I told him he has Lewy body dementia, it’s as if he’s given up and let the disease take over. I’m trying to be strong in front of him, but when I’m alone, I can’t stop crying.”

“I know. It’s terrible.”

“I’m thankful I have my granddaughter to distract me this weekend. Did you change the sheets for me?” I nodded. She went into the kitchen and opened my pantry cabinets and began rearranging my canned goods. I could have stopped her, but it was easier to just put everything back when I got home. My canned goods must’ve been a disaster, because she gave up on them and opened my silverware drawer. She took out the knives and put them where the forks were, then the spoons where the knives were. She was making me dizzy. “I thought I’d take Gia out to dinner one of the nights, and the other one, I’ll cook,” she said.

“You don’t have to cook. I made Gia’s favorite foods and put them in the fridge.”

She closed the silverware drawer. “But I like to cook.”

“With all you’ve been dealing with, I wanted to make things easier on you.”

She softened. “That was thoughtful.” I wasn’t being thoughtful; I was protecting Gia from my mother’s “famous” salmon patties. To this day, if I even smelled salmon, I got PTSD.

She moved my juice glasses to a different shelf. “I wrote a few things down for you,” I said. I picked up a sheet of paper off the counter that had “Household Information” written at the top. I tried to hand it to her, but she wouldn’t take it.

“Gia can tell me what to do,” she said.

Poor Theo, he was never going to get fed. “I’ll just leave the list on the counter,” I said, relenting. “If you have any questions, you can always call me.”

“I’ll be fine, your house will be fine, everything will be fine,” she said. Yeah, everything but my kitchen. “There is something important I want to talk to you about,” she said.

Oh God, what could it be? It would be just like her to bring up something horrible right before I left for my anniversary trip. I began to sweat. “What is it?” I asked wearily.

“I think I should cut my hair off, like Scarlett Johansson’s.”

I was relieved that it wasn’t something bad. Then I realized it was something bad. My elderly mother wanted to look like Scarlett Johansson. “I don’t think most women look good with hair that short,” I said. “Besides, I like your hair the way you’ve always had it.” I hoped she would take the compliment and forget this ridiculous idea.

“Twenty years of the same haircut is too much. I should switch it up.”

“No, you really shouldn’t.” I looked at the time. “Mom, I have some things I need to do before we leave. Gia’s upstairs if you want to say hi.” She ran up the stairs as fast as a seventy-five-year-old woman could run up stairs.

I spent the next half hour paying a few bills and putting away the laundry. As I folded the last of the shirts, Jim rushed through the door, cursing about the traffic. “I’ll be ready soon,” he said and grabbed two shirts out of the laundry basket I was holding. I should have packed for him. The last time we went away, he forgot socks.

While he was opening and closing drawers, I went to say goodbye to Gia. The door to her room was half-open. Gia was sitting on her bed, and my mom had her arms around her. A pang of jealousy rushed through me. I wished I had that kind of relationship with my mom. Had I been the first one to pull away or had she? The closest I’d felt to her in ages was when we were commiserating over my father.

Gia and Mom were looking at a website on Gia’s iPad where you could download a picture of yourself and check out how different hairstyles would look on you. Gia held the iPad up and was trying to get her grandmother to sit still so she could take her picture. “Make sure you only shoot my left side. My right side makes me look older,” Mom said. I was about to enter when I heard my mother ask Gia, “So, how’s that boyfriend of yours?” I froze.

“Which one?” Gia asked, laughing.

“Good for you, Gia. Date them all.”

Date them all? What the hell? I was so flustered that I accidentally smacked the door with my hand, and it flew open, banging into the wall. Mom and Gia jumped slightly.

“Hi,” I said, casually leaning on the door frame. “Your dad and I are leaving in a couple of minutes.”

“Oh, I thought you already left,” Gia said.

“I’d never go without saying goodbye.” As I leaned down and kissed her on the top of her head, my phone buzzed from my back pocket. It was a text from Michael. I loved seeing his name on my phone.

I hope you’re having a good day.I texted a thumbs-up and a happy face emoji. I put the phone back in my pocket.

“Tell Dad to come say goodbye,” Gia said.

“Have a great time and don’t worry about a thing,” Mom said. “Us girls will be fine.” The two of them went back to their hairstyling adventure, as if I’d been dismissed from the room.

Jim and I were finally on the road. I regretted wearing a sexy, off-the-shoulder shirt for an hour and a half car ride. Even though it was only fifty degrees, I wanted to look good. I spent the first twenty minutes pulling it back down onto my shoulders because it kept hiking up around my ears. Jim didn’t notice because he was busy changing radio stations every two minutes. We were listening to the weather report, then Jay-Z, then the Mets game, then Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling.” We were ill at ease with each other, which was not how I was hoping to start the weekend. I hoped the rest of the time wouldn’t be filled with our nervous energy. I’d put a bottle of champagne in my luggage, just in case. If we were drunk, we’d either be less anxious or not care that we weren’t.

We pulled up to the bed and breakfast, and it was just as I remembered. It was in the middle of acres of forest land and looked like a historical mansion, painted white with black shutters and a wraparound porch. Since it was still cold outside, there was a little bit of snow on the roof and smoke coming out of the chimney. There was no valet and no bellhop, but a young man greeted us and checked us in. I assumed they would have updated the rooms, but not much had changed. It still felt cozy though, and there was wood stacked neatly next to the fireplace. I sat down on the pure white comforter, and little particles of dust shot up around me. I wiped the dust off. I could have picked some luxurious five-star resort, but this inn represented a special time in our relationship, and I wanted to see if we could recapture that. When I saw that the staff had lit candles next to the bathtub, I knew I had made the right decision.