The Bet

Carter offered Russ a bet this morning. I had no idea about this potential wager. It is the day that Carter left us to go home to Boston. We have had a great week together. We played games, hiked, cooked, ate, went to museums, shopped, explored, told stories, discussed business, needlepointed, looked at the ocean, saw birds and foxes, played with Shay, all while Carter and Russ also worked everyday.

It was a perfect week. You just don’t get much time with adult children who live in other cities and have jobs. It is hard on a parent to go from having them home all the time, even when they don’t want to be, to having them home on school vacations, even when they really just want to use the washer, to having them have a new home in a far off city.

Of course that is the goal you have been training them for. To be self sufficient, happy and successful. To lead full lives where they don’t need you anymore, or not as much as they did when you had to tie their shoes and wipe their face after ice cream.

We live all of one mile from the tiny Knox county airport where Carter can take the Cape Air flight back to Boston. It could not be more convenient for her to get home. We dropped her off just as the TSA was opening “the gate” to screen the eight passengers. That’s where we had to say goodbye, but since the weather was iffy in Boston Russ and I went to the picnic table outside to wait to make sure the plane went. It ran late, but did go and we got to say goodbye one last time as Carter and the other seven passengers were escorted the 25 yards from “the gate” to “the plane.” We watched the plane taxi and take off before crossing the grass to the free parking.

We walked into our little cottage and I went in the living room and Russ followed me there. I burst into tears. It caught me by surprise and Russ hugged me. “Carter bet me you would cry. I told her I was not taking that bet.”