Chapter 1 At five p.m. Eastern Standard Time the next day, Bonnie is sitting in her home office, leaning forward in the luxury ergonomic chair that she bought to get her through all those endless Zoom meetings of the pandemic. She is always slightly anxious before phone calls with her parents. They are equal parts comforting and exasperating in their familiarity, but also a reminder of the frugal, clipped household she grew up in, one that she was secretly ashamed of when she first started dating Chris--and perhaps has tried too hard to leave behind. Her family members flicker to life one by one, until they are all there stacked in a neat four-square--centimeters apart on-screen, thousands of miles apart in real life. Her parents peer into their camera, always slightly mistrusting any pixilated form of communication. They must be sitting in bed together, because she can see their pale blue padded headboard, unchanged for forty years.
The iPad on their laps catches their faces at a low, unnatural angle. Mom in particular looks thinner, paler, a wizened ghost of the tenacious mother she''s known all her life--and Bonnie registers this with shock. But she tamps down the gnawing worry and greets her parents with her usual cheeriness. "How was the hospital, Mom?" Her mom sniffs and shrugs, revealing that familiar defeatist attitude. "It was okay. The food was lousy. I''m glad to be back." This is a grumpier version of Mom, shorn of all softness or pleasantness.
"Are you. is there a procedure happening?" Kevin ventures. "I''m sick of procedures." Mom shakes her head. "They are doing something else to me in about a month." They all nod in silence. Bonnie notes this is the first time Kevin and Alex have been in the same space (virtual or otherwise) in five years. But with Zoom, they don''t have to acknowledge each other''s presence.
They can just exist, side by side on-screen, never making direct eye contact. Which is impossible anyway with Zoom, Bonnie realizes. You can look at your sister''s eyes on-screen, but you''ll never know if she''s actually looking at you. Each of them contemplates the unspoken, nodding silently around the fact of Mom''s medical condition. In the meantime, they cycle through some more pleasantries of catching up: how is Alex''s job, how are Jess and the kids, Chris and the boys. Bonnie is distinctly aware that Alex''s news remains a secret--and that it is not her place to hint at any of it. "So, Mom, why did you want to have a Zoom with all of us?" Bonnie finally asks, trying to be as gentle as possible. "Can''t I see my children all at once?" Mom jokes, a righteous note rising in her voice.
"No, of course you can." Bonnie imagines that in ten years, she may be asking the same thing of her sons. "I never get to see all you," Mom continues. "I mean, one by one, yes. But when was the last time we were all together?" "I think that might have been Christmas sometime," Bonnie offers vaguely. She shoots a look at Alex, then Kevin, but they''re staring straight ahead, offering no assistance. Thanks, guys. "So long ago.
" Mom shakes her head sadly. "What happened?" Does Mom really have no idea? Something did happen; they were all there to witness it at the dinner table. She remembers Kevin''s taunting voice, Alex storming off. Her parents, as always, pretending like nothing ugly had happened. "We just sort of. got really busy," Kevin says lamely. "Raising two young kids in lockdown, that was nuts." "I know," Mom says.
"I raised three of you. All while your dad was working to support us. I know what it''s like." Whatever Mom says, it always lodges a shard of guilt deep inside Bonnie. "I''m sorry," Alex finally speaks up. "I''ve been really terrible at keeping in touch." She trails off, takes a breath, and Bonnie wonders if this is the moment when Alex will share her news, as startling and revelatory as it is. But before Alex can continue, Mom launches into a deep, hacking cough, the phlegm gurgling in her throat, and Bonnie shudders.
How long has she had that cough for? "Mom, you okay?" Alex asks. Mom shakes her head, clears her throat again, reaches for a cup of water. After she''s sipped and recovered, she continues. "So, I think it''s time. I want to see all of you again." It''s time? There is a terrible finality to the phrase, which alarms Bonnie. "What, like, now?" Kevin asks. He sounds just like Bonnie''s fourteen-year-old.
The teenage indignation. Mom nods. "Now. This month." "This month?" Kevin exclaims. Bonnie panics. "Is it that serious?" Mom shrugs. "What is serious, Bonnie? A mother wants to see her children after years apart.
Isn''t that normal?" Years. Bonnie absorbs this fact. What would it be like to go years without seeing Max and Henry and Milo? Impossible to even contemplate. She wonders if the ache of motherhood subsides with age. "My procedure is on the twenty-sixth. I want to see you all before then. Together." Kevin sighs audibly, and Alex is still quiet--her video frozen for a split second.
"Okay," Kevin says, ever the obedient son. He glances down--presumably at his phone. "What weekend?" "It doesn''t matter what weekend," Dad speaks up. "We''re retired. It''s all the same to us. You three work it out." "But," Alex says, then pauses. "I''ll--I''ll have to look at flights.
" Mom shakes her head, then explodes into another violent fit of coughing. "No. Don''t just fly here." Mom gestures toward the screen, as if to admonish them. "I want you to drive together. The three of you." Bonnie lurches in shock. "Drive?! Mom, you live in California, I''m near Boston.
" She does a quick calculation. It would probably take five, six days to drive all the way to the West Coast. Can she be away from her sons for that long? Kevin''s eyes are wide in disbelief, and Alex still appears frozen. Or maybe just in shock, too. "You don''t have to drive the whole way," Mom argues. "I just want you to drive together . A road trip, like the old days." What old days? Bonnie thinks.
But then she grasps a memory of sitting in the back seat of their old beige station wagon, the three of them watching the shape of their parents'' heads, as miles of highway slid past. There had been road trips, on occasion. "I want you to drive here to California. And I want you to--" Mom stops and coughs, then resumes. "I want you to see the Grand Canyon together." A strained, unfamiliar feeling of regret curdles within Bonnie. The Grand Canyon. She lingers on an image: flat, dusty desert rolling endlessly past their car windows.
They had once tried to drive to the Grand Canyon as a family. When she was a teenager. Why they never made it, Bonnie still can''t quite understand. She notices everyone on the Zoom has gone quiet. "The Grand Canyon?" Alex finally repeats, her voice low. "Yes." Their mom nods, uncompromising. "Have any of you been there?" "Uh, no.
" Kevin shakes his head. "No. It''s a little far," Alex says. Bonnie admits that she, too, has never stood on the edge of that great natural wonder, this geological marvel that all Americans instinctively know about, even if they grow up thousands of miles away in New England. "No, I haven''t." Mom nods, her argument complete. "So then go. Drive there, and then here to California.
" She pauses before looking straight at the camera, straight at them. "You owe it to me." They owed it to Mom? They owed it? Like it was a debt that could be repaid after all these decades. A peculiar feeling of anger slices through Kevin when he thinks of the Grand Canyon. How could she claim they owed it to her, when they had only been children, for god''s sake. But Kevin tamps down this resentment, the way he always does with his parents. "That''s a long way, Mom." he starts to say.
"I know it''s a long way. That''s why we never got to go when you were little." Well, we could have. If you hadn''t decided to turn around. "I just want you all to spend time together, now that you''re all grown-up. You never see each other. You never see your dad and me." "I''m sure there''s another way we can all see each other," Bonnie offers, characteristically practical.
"I mean, we just need more time to plan ahead. Like six months, or something like that." She trails off. Because they all know that the three of them wouldn''t ever get together without their mom''s insistence. That''s how far apart they''ve drifted. The guilt trickles in again, pooling into a dark, secret puddle inside Kevin. Mom snorts. "Maybe I don''t want to wait six months.
" Maybe she doesn''t have six months. That''s what goes unsaid. "Okay, then this month. Before the twenty-sixth." Kevin finally acquiesces. Always the first to appease his parents, because his sisters have always been too set on having things their own way. Bonnie sighs, and he can imagine her mentally rearranging her family''s upscale social schedule. No more Club Med this year, no more vacationing at Martha''s Vineyard.
Out of nowhere, Alex speaks up with unex.