Once, when Diane went antiquing with two friends and forgot her phone in the car, Ethan almost drove forty minutes to find her.
I told him he was becoming overprotective.
He told me I didn’t understand.
“She spent her whole adult life with Dad,” he said. “She doesn’t know how to do this alone.”
I remember looking at him and saying:
“Ethan, your mother raised you, managed a household, worked twenty-seven years as a school administrator, survived cancer treatment with your father, and handled his entire estate after he died.”
He didn’t appreciate my point.
“She’s still vulnerable.”
Maybe she was.
But vulnerable and incapable aren’t the same thing.
That distinction became important the summer Diane turned sixty-four.
We had rented a beachfront condo on Hilton Head Island for eight days.
It was supposed to be a family getaway.
Nothing dramatic.
Sun.
Seafood.
Too much sunscreen.
