Chapter 4 - The Sound of Cobblestones and Dead Air
Lisbon in late May smells of roasting coffee, diesel exhaust, and salt from the Tagus River.
When Joyce and I stepped out of the arrivals hall at Portela Airport, the morning light was so clear and golden it felt like being struck gently between the shoulder blades with a warm flatiron. We took a taxi through streets lined with buildings covered in blue-and-white tiles—*azulejos*, our driver called them, pointing with a hairy hand as he took a roundabout at forty miles an hour while Joyce gripped the door handle and recited the names of her grandchildren under her breath.
Our hotel was a small, high-ceilinged building in the Alfama district. The floors were dark chestnut that groaned with every step, and the tall French doors in my room opened onto a wrought-iron balcony that overlooked a labyrinth of red-tiled roofs descending toward the river.
I set my suitcase on the luggage rack. The yellow ribbon was still tied to the handle.
I sat on the edge of the bed, kicked off my walking shoes, and turned on my phone.
It took forty seconds for the international roaming to connect to the Portuguese cellular network. When it did, the phone didn't merely chime; it shuddered.
Nine missed calls from Caleb.
Fourteen missed calls from Tori.
Six text messages from Tori.
Two text messages from Patrice.
I opened Patrice’s messages first.
The first was from nine-thirty the previous evening, which would have been mid-afternoon in Ohio:
*Finn tried to feed the whippet an entire waffle. The whippet survived. I have canceled Tori’s access to the shared grocery delivery account.*
The second was from twenty minutes ago:
*The screaming has begun from Tokyo. Do not yield.*
I stood up, walked out onto the balcony, and leaned against the cold iron railing. Down below, an old woman in a black apron was sweeping the stone steps of an alleyway, her broom making a dry, rhythmic *scritch-scratch* against the granite. A yellow tram clattered along the ridge of the hill above us, its bell ringing twice—sharp, cheerful, and distant.
My phone rang. The screen displayed Caleb’s face—a photo from two years ago, where he was wearing a baseball cap at the lake, squinting into the sun.
I answered it.
"Mom?" Caleb’s voice was hollow, distorted by twelve thousand miles of satellite relays and the roaring background noise of an airport terminal. He sounded panicked, the way he used to sound when he woke up from a nightmare about the dark. "Mom, where are you? What is going on?"
"Good morning, Caleb," I said. "It’s nearly ten o'clock here. The weather is lovely."
"Mom, Patrice has the kids!"
"I know," I said. "I dropped them off on my way to the airport."
There was a long, static-filled pause. In the background, I could hear a woman’s voice—Tori—shouting something sharp and muffled, followed by the clatter of a carry-on bag being slammed against a counter.
"You... you went to Portugal?" Caleb’s voice rose into a high, cracking register. "You actually went?"
"Caleb, I told you five months ago I was going to Portugal. I gave you the dates. I sent you the itinerary."
"I thought that was a joke!" he shouted. "Or... or that you were looking at trips for the fall! Mom, you can't just leave four children with Patrice! She doesn't know Maggie’s nap routine! She told Tori on the phone that she was going to make Eli mow the lawn!"
"Eli is fourteen," I said, watching the yellow tram disappear around the curve of the hill. "He is quite capable of pushing a mower. His father was mowing the lawn at twelve."
"Mom, put Tori on—wait, no, she’s grabbing the phone—"
There was a scuffle, a burst of electronic feedback, and then Tori’s voice cut through the line like a razor through silk. She wasn't panicked; she was furious, that cold, incandescent rage of a person who has discovered that an appliance has refused to turn on.
"Myrna, this is completely unacceptable," Tori said, her words clipped and rapid-fire. "We just spent fourteen hours on a plane. We are at Narita Airport. My mother is threatening to throw away all the organic snacks I bought and she told Caleb he was an irresponsible coward who shouldn't have been allowed to graduate from high school!"
"Well," I said, "your mother has always had a way with words."
"This isn't funny!" Tori’s voice hit a pitch that turned several heads on the street below my balcony. "We paid eight thousand dollars for this trip! We have a private dinner in Kyoto on Saturday! You are their grandmother! It was your job to watch them!"
"No, Tori," I said. I spoke softly, but I made sure every consonant was clear. "It was never my job. It was a favor you never asked for."
"I put the folder on your counter!"
"A folder is not a conversation," I told her. "A folder is an invoice. And I don't work for you."
"We are turning around," Tori hissed. "We are going to find a flight back right now, and when we get home—"
"If you fly home," I interrupted, "you will spend sixteen hours in a middle seat, you will waste eight thousand dollars, and your children will still be at your mother’s house. Patrice is entirely capable of keeping four healthy children alive for twelve days. She raised you, didn't she?"
Tori made a choking sound in the back of her throat.
"Enjoy your dinner in Kyoto, Tori," I said. "I am going to get an espresso and a custard tart."
I pressed the red button on the screen. The call ended.
The silence that followed was different from the silence in my empty hallway at home. It was filled with the smell of orange blossoms drifting up from the courtyard below and the distant, silver ringing of church bells from the cathedral down the hill.
May you like
My hands were shaking, just a little, around the edges of the phone. But as I took a deep breath of the salt air, my lungs felt larger than they had in five years.
***
