“I’m tired, Joseph.”

Worry instantly filled me. My dad had said those exact three words the night before he was killed, and I never realized how much of a trigger they were until this moment. I pushed back from my desk and walked across the room.

“Are you sick? Are you feeling okay?” I asked before sitting down on the couch next to her and taking her hand in mine.

“I’m fine.” She pulled her hand away and patted my shoulder. “I only meant that I’m tired of being here and not doing anything else with my life.”

I knew exactly what she meant. After my dad had died, it was like a part of her world had stopped turning, and all of the dreams they had shared seemed to evaporate, the way his presence did. At first, I knew it was because she was concerned about the company and all of our employees. She felt an obligation to make sure that no one lost their job and that all of our clients continued singing our praises and recommending us while remaining completely satisfied with our services. With ease, my mother oversaw every detail, caught each oversight, and handled the curveballs that clients threw at us. That became her full-time job until it was clear that she no longer needed to hold on with both hands; Martin Staffing and Management was going to be more than just fine with me at the helm. But by that point, I think my mom had forgotten that she once had dreams of her own. She’d lost her way during the detour my dad’s death had caused, and she had yet to get back on her own road.

It was always part of the plan that I would take over and run the company, but we never intended on it being so soon. Life had taught me that it didn’t follow a script, especially not the ones we tried to write for it. To be honest, I loved what I did, but I would like my mom to have more of a life.

“What are you saying exactly?” I needed to push her or else she’d never get to the point—at least not directly.

My mother would hem and haw, hinting at what she wanted to do but never fully giving in to it. She had mastered the ability to talk herself out of anything before it was even a true option.

“I want to travel. I want to see the world. Your father and I had so many plans for after—” Her voice broke, and she paused. “After he retired.”

“I know. You guys used to talk about it all the time,” I said almost wistfully even though I wanted to keep my emotions out of it. It was hard whenever he got brought up.

“We had a lot of plans.”

“You can still do them, you know? And you should. You had a list once, remember?” I asked, talking about the bucket list of travel places that used to hang on our fridge underneath a Take Risks magnet. It’d disappeared one afternoon, and even though I’d noticed its absence immediately, I never asked about it. Until now.