Alexander had a different opinion about her anonymity. He had begged her to let his publicity team arrange photographs, interviews, charity dinners, and magazine features about the woman who had supported him before anybody thought his inventions were worth financing. He wanted the world to know that she had worked extra shifts while Samuel taught mathematics at a community college, that she had kept the family budget in careful pencil columns, and that she had refused to let her son sell his first computer project just to pay a tuition bill. Olivia had always answered that the world already had enough photographs of rich people standing beside other rich people.
"I was your mother before anybody knew your name," she would tell him. "I can keep being your mother without a camera crew."
There was affection behind the argument, and neither of them mistook it for anything else. Alexander respected her independence, even when it frustrated him. That was why Olivia had booked the Denver-to-Boston flight herself, using the ordinary reservation system and her personal credit card. The first-class ticket was an indulgence she had chosen rather than a favor from her son.
It was not that she suddenly enjoyed extravagance. Samuel had always insisted that their anniversary trips should contain one small luxury, even when the rest of the journey involved sandwiches packed at home and the cheapest hotel within walking distance. This would have been their forty-sixth wedding anniversary. Olivia intended to honor the tradition by buying herself the comfortable seat Samuel would have wanted her to have.
She had spent the previous evening packing with a photograph on the dresser. In it, Samuel stood beside her on a Boston sidewalk thirty years earlier, holding a paper bag of pastries while she laughed at something outside the frame. The picture was slightly blurred because the stranger who took it had pressed the shutter while moving. Olivia loved it more than the professionally photographed portraits that hung in her son's homes. The blur made the memory feel alive.
Her son had called while she was folding the last sweater. "Tell me you accepted the car service," he said, skipping his usual greeting. Olivia smiled at the familiar impatience in his voice.
"I accepted a ride to the airport from my neighbor, Alex. A perfectly respectable ride in a perfectly respectable car."
"Mom, I own an airline. You could at least let somebody carry your luggage."
"I have one backpack and a little suitcase. If I need a team for that, you can start worrying about me."
He laughed, then grew quieter. "You're going to the river?"