"Yes. And the bakery if it is still there. Maybe the church where your father and I renewed our vows." Olivia touched the bracelet while she spoke. "I want to remember him in the places where we were happy."
Alexander did not try to change her mind. He simply asked her to call when she landed, and she promised she would. Before hanging up, he said he had asked the reservations team to make a note that she was an important guest. She told him to remove it. He knew better than to argue after hearing her use that particular tone.
"If your people treat me kindly," Olivia said, "I want it to be because they treat people kindly. Not because somebody warned them whose mother I am."
The next morning, Denver was bright and cold, with a pale autumn sun rising beyond the airport's glass walls. Olivia had arrived early enough to sit at a coffee counter and watch the organized rush of travelers moving toward their gates. Businesspeople carried slim laptops, families negotiated with restless children, and a man in a construction jacket slept upright with both hands around his phone. Olivia liked airports when she had nowhere urgent to be. They reminded her that every person was carrying a different destination, whether or not it was printed on a boarding pass.
The barista at the coffee counter was a young woman with a silver nose stud and a name badge reading Maya. She smiled when Olivia ordered a regular black coffee and asked whether she was going anywhere interesting. Olivia told her Boston, and Maya said she had never been there but wanted to visit the harbor.
"You should," Olivia answered. "There's a street where my husband used to buy a pastry just so he could pretend he'd stopped walking because he was hungry instead of tired. He was very proud. He was also terrible at pretending."
Maya laughed and wrote a little heart beside Olivia's name on the paper cup. It was such a small thing that nobody nearby paid attention. Olivia did, though. Samuel used to say that service was never an ordinary transaction when someone took the trouble to see the other person.
At gate C18, boarding had not yet begun. Olivia chose a seat near the window, kept her coffee balanced on her knee, and opened an old novel with creased pages. She glanced at the departure board twice, not because she was nervous about flying but because she had learned to make sure information matched before leaving one place for another. A boarding announcement eventually invited first-class passengers and families needing additional time to approach the gate.