Parallel Play

When cookbook author Lucinda Scala Quinn and her adult son take a last-minute cruise, they rediscover the simple pleasures of doing little to nothing side by side.

- COOKIE MOON

Just before Christmas, I was sitting on the living room couch in our New York City apartment next to my son Luca, who was home for the holidays and working remotely on his laptop. I was surreptitiously scanning travel sites on my phone for a warm-weather getaway. The previous year had been a doozy for our family. My three sons and I had cared for my husband, Richie, at home during the last six months of his life. Seven months had passed since then, the immediate sucker punch of loss giving way to something more diffuse, and I'd made some peace with the fact that grief would be my constant—if ever-changing—companion. Having Luca back in New York was a balm even as the absence of his dad’s larger-than-life personality had dampened the energy in our home. Luca, our youngest adult son, was the first to move far away from our close-knit clan, making his way to his father’s home state of California. His dad was so proud of him.