The Long Way Home

After weeks of canceled plans and missed dinners, Leena finally convinced her teenage sons to join her for a walk in the hills behind their neighborhood. “Just an hour,” she had bargained, “then you can go back to your screens.”

They started on the lower trail, the boys trailing behind at first, earbuds still in. But as the path curved up, the view opened, and something shifted. One by one, the earbuds came out. They began noticing things again—the sound of the creek, the rustle of birds darting through the brush, the sudden silence when the wind paused.

Halfway up, they stopped for a break. Leena handed out apples and granola bars. Her youngest, Nate, flopped onto a sun-warmed rock and grinned, “This isn’t that bad.”

By the time they reached the ridge, the city looked small. Her older son, Jason, took out his phone—only to take a photo.

They didn’t talk much on the way down, but it was a good silence. The kind that wraps around you like a warm jacket.

At the car, Nate asked, “Can we take the long way home?”

Leena smiled, unlocking the doors. “We just did.”