We went to the beach last week with Chris’ family, an annual affair that finds at least 15 people stuffed into a single beach house. Because it has rained everywhere I have gone this summer, it rained at the beach, too, heavy horizontal sheets of rain broken by the occasional drizzle and the rare hours of partly cloudy skies. I went to exercise classes every day, the island book store four times, a movie once, and the yarn store twice — all of which was fine, but I would have preferred long walks on the beach instead.

On Thursday of that week, our son was returning from a summer abroad. (As happy as we were to send him, there were moments when Chris and I both wished that someone had handed us plane tickets and a credit card and sent us into the larger world to visit museums and ancient ruins. Alas.) His flight arrived in Atlanta, but his grandfather announced that he had gotten a ticket for our son from Atlanta to New Bern, a small town an hour from the beach.

My father-in-law was uncharacteristically mum about those plans until dinner on Wednesday night. Taking advantage of Chris’ mouthful of crab cake, my father-in-law asked Chris if he had any problem if he — my father-in-law — picked up our son at the airport. Although I had firmly believed that such a plan was afoot all along, and had even warned Chris about it, Chris replied that that was fine. It was a sneak attack on the weaker flank. But perhaps he felt my glare, for several beats later, my father-in-law turned to me and asked me if this plan worked for me. It did not, I told him, it did not work for me at all, for I had not seen my son in months, and he was my son. After spending ten minutes telling us both just how difficult a drive it was to this airport and how easy it was to miss a turn, my father-in-law discovered that I would not relent, and finally bent himself to my will.

My father-in-law is a man who loves his grandchildren deeply, a fact that I reminded myself repeatedly as I searched for the flight that would most likely bring my son into New Bern, North Carolina. I surmised that it would arrive at 9:24 p.m., and to be on the safe side, I messaged my son as if I had known it all along.

You may not be surprised to find that there was no tricky turn, no hardship in the route from the beach to New Bern. It was an hour in rural North Carolina through what was billed as a national forest, although the parts we saw appeared to be a national forest of mobile homes and convenience stores. We left the beach early to eat dinner at a restaurant in New Bern, and the food was surprisingly good. The dessert was incredible.

If you are not from the South, I will give you this little tip. If you are ever in a restaurant and see “Memaw’s Famous Strawberry Cake,” you should order it. The fact that someone has become locally famous in a microcosm of potluck dinners, funeral spreads, and church social hall meals means something. One of the loveliest people I know, my across-the-park neighbor, brought me a carrot cake for my birthday with the explanation that her husband really liked it. She is unassuming and incredibly kind, and her modesty prevented her from describing that carrot cake properly: It should have been regulated by the DEA, for it was just that addictive. When I found out that Memaw was the chef’s grandmother and baked every single one of the desserts at that restaurant, I ordered the dessert sampler. There is a star in her crown in heaven, let me tell you.

Whenever Chris and I have a good meal, we invariably compare to our best meal. In early 2002, these same in-laws came to Savannah and took care of the children, who were then 2 and 4. Chris and I drove to St. Augustine and immediately fell asleep; if you have ever had children who were 2 and 4, you understand. We woke up very late that evening and walked around St. Augustine and happened on a little courtyard leading to a French restaurant. It was about 9:30, and someone had canceled a reservation, and there was a single table for two that we secured. I remember what the restaurant looked like, and that there was a large group of men seated at a table nearby.

The food was so good that we practically licked our plates. The waitress told us that it was such a pleasure to see people who enjoyed a meal so much; it made her happy. It apparently made the chef happy, too, for he sent out small plates and sorbets and amuses-bouche. I have no idea of what we talked about that night, but I recall clearly how liberating it was to feel free from responsibility for a few hours, to swap “Mom and Dad” for “Amy Lee and Chris.”

I tried unsuccessfully to find the restaurant the next day and on later trips. I am not certain now that it even existed outside of my very vivid memories. But as we ate last Thursday night in New Bern, North Carolina, Chris and I spoke of it once again. Here we were, 16 years later, trying not to escape our life as parents but to embrace it. We were not running from our children; we were running to them. When I saw my son walking down the corridor into the public area of the New Bern airport, I practically cried. It had been a very long time. Is there any wonder we all look so happy in the photo?

We are delivering him to Athens in a few days, a U-Haul truck full of our old furniture headed straight to his first apartment. He can hardly wait. His apartment is a few blocks from my first apartment, and in a neat bit of fate, built to the same mid-60s plans. Except for the hardwood floors, ceiling fans, and dishwasher, it is the same space I occupied 30 years ago.

As I have helped him corral furniture and the flotsam and jetsam of life in one’s own place, he has said that our home was no longer his home. I remember calling my apartment “home” in a conversation with my mother, and she burst into tears. Your home is with me, she said. Even then, I did not think that that is exactly right. Your parents love you fiercely, to be sure, but it is a job of planned obsolescence. We have given him the living room sofa, the old dining room chairs, a table, a number of lamps. But we have also given him independence, advice, a full panoply of mistakes not to make if he has only been watching and listening. At his apartment, we will watch him unpack it all, and then we will drive back home.

ALC