On Monday, our last full day in Chicago, we went to the zoo and the conservatory, ate Ethiopian food, played pool, listened to a jazz quintet at the Green Mill, once a favorite hangout of Al Capone. It was one of those slow busy days, filled with long saunters, watching and wondering, getting cold and getting warm, walking first with one person and then another, a friendly desultory ease. My son's partner is as simple to love as he is.

And then yesterday, after riding on every kind of transportation except for boats, magic carpets, and dragonflies, we finally bumbled up our Portland back stoop, greeted our annoyed cat, ate dinner from our understocked fridge, and watched a Hitchcock movie under our couch blanket. The visit to Chicago was so sweet; I cried, as always, when I parted from my son; but being home is its own denouement, and it should be.