There is the light sound of toys clinking together, and your fairy voice calling from the living room. “Grampy! Teatime!”

I walk through the house, and it feels like the first time. The entrance hall feels dingy—the baseboards in need of a fresh coat, the scuffs on the wall, the ceiling light with one bulb out. I really should paint the walls, but it all seems so pointless now, repairing, tidying up, fixing things. For what? For who? In six months, I will be gone. Maybe three. Maybe next week. Somehow, during our walk home, during my search for you, the weight of the diagnosis had lifted, but now it circles, eyes up the terrain, and settles.

“Grampy!” you call again, and I turn the corner.

There are three place settings. Three tiny plastic cups on three tiny plastic saucers.

“Pearl,” I ask in a quiet voice, “are you expecting a visitor?”

“I invited the silver-haired woman,” you say, not even bothering to look up, so busy arranging and running back and forth to the kitchen.

I sigh. “Does she have white hair or silver hair? You can’t seem to make up your mind.”

You shrug off my inquisition. “It shimmers and shines. It depends on the light.”

“It depends on the light,” I repeat, raising my eyebrows skeptically. You giggle.

We sit there on the floor for quite some time, my back against the sofa. I notice your eyes occasionally flitting up to the side of my head, where the now slightly-larger-than-marble-sized knot juts out into the world. And my eyes are drawn over and over again to the third place setting. I can’t help it—I keep checking the front windows, looking over my shoulder, waiting for the woman to walk into the room. But she does not.

“I have something I need to tell you, Pearl,” I say.

You take me in with your big, dark eyes. I clear my throat. It’s aching now, the knot. I rub my jaw and squint, staring over at the bookshelves that hold all of our favorites.

“We’re going to go away for a bit.”

“Back to where you grew up?” you ask, but there is no excitement in your voice. Only wariness. Perhaps a little skepticism.

“Pearl,” I begin, nearly losing my patience. “Yes. Back to where I grew up.”

“Where my daddy grew up?”

“Your daddy grew up here, in this house. We’re going back to where he was born.”

“Do you think we’ll find him there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Is that why we’re going?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“I need to go back. I need to see if my friends still live there. I’d like to show you around.”

“Are we coming back here after we see where you grew up?”

I can tell it’s a hard question for you to ask. “I’d like it to be your town too.”

“So, we’re not coming back?”

“I don’t know. Not yet.”

A silence falls around us. You lift up your plastic teacup, raise it to your lips, close your eyes, and drink a long and deep draft of the pretend tea. “So good,” you whisper. When you open your eyes, you suddenly seem too old for tea parties. Why have I not recognized it before?