Before travelling to Asia for a month with the Pinskys and then moving to their new home in Florida, my parents spent their last night at Hampshire Court, the home they’d owned for thirty-eight years, sleeping in my old bedroom, now promised to them as their permanent guestroom, while Vincent and Marcus slept in their own rooms and Simon and Ellen slept in the master bedroom and, upon Ellen’s insistence, in a new bed.
Ellen had invited me for breakfast, but I’d slept in and arrived late.
“You’re a model of consistency,” Simon said. He was standing on the driveway behind his car, loading the last of my parents’ luggage into the trunk.
“Sorry.”
He put his arm around my shoulder, and we walked up the driveway and into the house.
My parents and Ellen were standing in the front hallway. Th
