The day before my 63rd birthday, I found out that my son had planned a trip and was leaving me behind to look after 18 children. I didn’t say anything at all. On my birthday itself, he called: “Mom, where are you?” I smiled: “Don’t worry … Venice is beautiful!”

Daddy is yelling and Mommy is crying and nobody knows where you went. Are you okay? For a moment, sitting in that airplane cabin surrounded by strangers, I almost turned around.

Almost called David and apologized and promised to catch the next flight home to clean up the mess I’d created. But then I remembered Tuesday afternoon in my kitchen. The way David had walked through my door without knocking.

The way he’d announced his plans without asking. The way he’d dismissed my birthday like it was an inconvenience to his schedule. I remembered thirty-seven years of birthdays spent cooking for other people’s celebrations.

Christmases where I wrapped everyone else’s gifts and never found anything special under the tree for me. Mother’s Days when my children called dutifully but briefly, already distracted by their own lives. I turned off my phone and stepped into Venice.