Tori thought she could leave four children with me while she flew to Japan, but she forgot one important detail: I had a flight of my own that afternoon, and I wasn't canceling it this time.

Tori’s suburban utility vehicle was still parked in my driveway, taking up enough concrete to dock a harbor tug. The keys had been tossed casually onto the entryway console beside my mail. It was a massive, pearl-white machine with tinted windows, smelling of strawberry air freshener and stale French fries.

I loaded the luggage back into the rear cargo bay: Tori’s two massive suitcases, the oversized duffel, and the four smaller school backpacks. I buckled Maggie into her car seat with a firm click that made her giggle. Chloe climbed in beside her, clutching her rabbit, while Eli claimed the front passenger seat, staring through the windshield with his arms crossed over his chest, his posture rigid with an odd, electric curiosity.

"Where are we going, Grandma?" Chloe called from the third row, her voice small against the hum of the engine.

"Oak Crest Lane," I said, shifting into reverse.

Finn poked his head between the front bucket seats. "Grandma Patrice's house?"

"Yes, Finn. Grandma Patrice’s house."

Eli let out a slow whistle through his teeth. "Mom is going to lose her mind."

"Your mother is currently somewhere over Minnesota," I said, checking my mirrors as I backed out into the street. "Her mind will have to catch up with her later."

The drive across town took fourteen minutes. It was seven-forty-five when I turned into Oak Crest Lane, a cul-de-sac lined with manicured Bradford pears that bloomed in the spring with a scent like damp flour. Patrice’s house was a brick colonial that looked as though it had been scrubbed with a toothbrush every Sunday morning since 1984. The lawn was cut to an exact two-and-a-half inches; the brass house numbers were polished to a mirror shine; and in the front flowerbeds, not a single speck of mulch dared to cross the black plastic edging.

Patrice and I had maintained an armed truce for fourteen years.

She was a retired interior designer who wore silk scarves to soccer games and spoke about table linens with the moral gravity of an Old Testament prophet. She believed I was folksy and disorganized; I believed she was an architectural blueprint masquerading as a grandmother. We traded cards at Christmas with generic messages inside, and we sat on opposite ends of the sofa during Thanksgiving while Caleb carved the turkey.

I put the SUV in park, turned off the ignition, and pulled the keys from the dash.

"Stay here for one minute," I told the children.

The morning air had a bite to it as I walked up the flagstone path. A pair of stone whippets guarded the front stoop. I reached out and pressed the brass doorbell. A four-note chime echoed through the interior of the house like church bells on a foggy pond.

Two minutes passed. Then the deadbolt turned with a sound far heavier than mine had.

Patrice opened the door. She was wearing a quilted navy-blue housecoat, tortoiseshell reading glasses on a silver chain around her neck, and a pair of dark green rubber gardening clogs. Her hair was already pinned into its neat, frosted bob, but she was holding a cup of chamomile tea, and her eyes were puffy with sleep.

She looked at me. She looked past me at the pearl-white SUV idling in her driveway.

"Myrna?" Her voice had that clipped, slightly wounded tone she used when the mail carrier walked across her lawn. "What on earth is happening? Is Caleb all right?"

"Caleb is fine," I said. "He is currently seated in business class, somewhere between Chicago and Seattle, drinking orange juice from a glass."

Patrice blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"Tori and Caleb left for Tokyo forty-five minutes ago," I said, holding out the red plastic folder. "They left these four children on my doorstep at six-thirty. They told me they would be gone for fourteen days."

Patrice took the folder by instinct, her manicured fingers closing over the red plastic. She looked down at it, then up at the car, where Maggie was currently waving wildly through the tinted rear window.

"Tokyo?" Patrice whispered. Her voice lost its sharp edge, replaced by genuine, bewildered shock. "Tori told me their trip wasn't until November. She told me she had a corporate retreat in Cincinnati this weekend."

"She lied to you," I said evenly. "Or she adjusted the truth to fit her logistics. Either way, they are on a plane to Japan. And I have a flight to Lisbon at one-fifteen this afternoon."

Patrice looked at the red folder, then at me. Her mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. For the first time in the fourteen years I had known her, Patrice looked entirely uncomposed.

"Lisbon?" she repeated. "You're going to Portugal?"

"I have paid three thousand two hundred dollars for a tour of Sintra and the Algarve coast," I said, keeping my hands resting lightly in the pockets of my jacket. "My suitcase is sitting in my hallway. My friend Joyce is meeting me at Newark at four. I will not cancel this trip, Patrice. I canceled Maine when Chloe had the mumps. I canceled the Greenbrier when Finn broke his collarbone. I am not canceling Portugal."

Patrice stood motionless on her pristine porch. The morning breeze caught the hem of her navy housecoat, flapping it against her shins. A crow called out from the top of an oak tree across the cul-de-sac.

"She knew you had that trip," Patrice said. It wasn't a question. It was a cold, surgical realization that dropped into the space between us like an iron weight.

"Caleb certainly did," I replied. "I texted him the itinerary in April. He replied with an emoji."

Patrice took off her reading glasses with a slow, deliberate movement. The puffiness in her eyes seemed to harden into flint. She turned her head and looked through the glass of the SUV, where Finn had now pressed his nose against the window, creating a large, greasy circle of condensation.

"The girl," Patrice said, her voice dropping an octave into a register I had never heard her use, "has had her own way since she was six years old because her father gave her a pony every time she threw a tantrum. She thinks the rest of the world is an extension of her personal staff."

She stepped back from the threshold and swung the heavy front door wide open.

"Get them out of the car," Patrice said.

I paused, caught off guard by the immediate, unhesitating command. "Patrice, I didn't bring them here to dump them on you. I brought them here because you are their grandmother, and between the two of us, you are the only one whose life wasn't scheduled to cross an ocean today. If you need me to help arrange an emergency sitter—"

"I don't need a sitter," Patrice snapped, though the bite wasn't aimed at me. "I need my daughter to learn that the people who raised her are human beings, not infrastructure. Eli! Get your brother's bag!"

Eli opened the car door with an alacrity I hadn't seen from him in three years. He hauled Finn out by the elbow, grabbed Maggie’s pink bag, and practically marched the younger ones up the flagstone walk.

Patrice stood on her stoop like an admiral taking command of a battered frigate. She bent down, scooped Maggie into her arms despite the silk lapels of her robe, and tapped Finn on the nose with her glasses.

"Wipe your face, Finnian," she said briskly. "There is raspberry jam in the pantry, and you are going to learn how to make toast without burning the crust. Eli, take those heavy bags through to the guest suite. Chloe, put that rabbit on the bench."

She turned back to me. Her gaze was sharp, assessing, and for the first time since my son had placed a ring on her daughter's finger, entirely conspiratorial.

"What time does your plane leave Newark?" she asked.

"Six-forty for Lisbon," I said. "The regional out of here is at one-fifteen."

"Go home," Patrice said. "Drink your tea. Call your friend Joyce. If that boy calls you from Tokyo, you don't answer the phone. You let him wonder."

"Patrice," I said, feeling an unexpected prickle of heat behind my eyelids. "Thank you."

She waved a hand dismissively, though her chin remained held high. "Don't thank me, Myrna. Send me a postcard of somewhere expensive."