Chapter 2 - The Man on the Bridge
The gentleman's name was Robert — a retired civil engineer from Portland, seventy-one, four years widowed, on his way to Munich to spend Christmas with his daughter. I told him about my tour.
"Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Twelve days."
"By yourself?"
"Yes."
Robert smiled. No pity in it. No surprise. He meant it. "Good for you."
I admitted it was the first major thing I'd done alone since Harold died. Robert nodded. "It took me three years after my wife died before I went anywhere except the grocery store."
"I barely left my town."
"What finally changed?"
I thought about Nicole's phone call. "I was told to stay home for Christmas."
"By somebody who should have known better?"
"My daughter-in-law."
"And instead?"
I looked toward the window. "And instead, I'm going to Europe."
We didn't exchange numbers. At Frankfurt we wished each other well and walked in opposite directions. Somehow that brief conversation was exactly enough.
My tour group gathered at eight the next morning — twenty-four travelers around a sign held by our guide, Greta. I found myself walking beside Patricia, a sixty-nine-year-old retired attorney from Atlanta.
"What brings you here?" she asked.
"My daughter-in-law told me to stay home for Christmas."
Patricia blinked. "So you booked a European vacation?"
"Yes."
She smiled. "Good." Then: "People told me I was too old to start over. So I retired and started over anyway."
I liked her immediately. Nearby were Dennis and Beverly, a Chicago couple married forty-three years, moving through the airport like they'd practiced it for decades. Watching them hurt more than I expected. I had once been half of a partnership like that. Harold had been good at dreaming; I'd been good at making those dreams happen. Now I was only one person.
For thirty seconds the thought threatened to pull me backward. Then Greta began walking, and I followed. I hadn't crossed an ocean to spend twelve days grieving something I couldn't change.
Our first stop was Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a medieval Bavarian town that looked so perfect I wrote in my new journal that it resembled the inside of a snow globe. Timbered buildings, cobblestone streets, a Christmas market glowing beneath strings of lights.
Patricia bought a small ornament. "I collect these instead of photographs. Pictures disappear into your phone. Ornaments come out once a year and force you to remember."
"Do you have a Christmas tree at home?"
"Yes."
"For yourself?"
I thought about the decorations waiting in Ohio. "It started as a tree for my son and daughter-in-law." I smiled. "But I suppose it ended up being for me."
"That sounds like a better ending."
I bought an ornament too — a delicate glass globe with a tiny winter village inside. I carried it in my hand luggage for the rest of the trip.
That evening the group ate together around a long wooden table. I sat between Patricia and Gerald, a sixty-five-year-old retired history teacher from Seattle who couldn't visit a historical place without explaining it. I loved listening.
"You must have been a good teacher," I said.
"I was adequate. I improved for thirty years and retired before I had time to get worse."
"Do you miss teaching?"
"The students. Not the institution."
"My husband loved gardening."
"Was he good?"
"Very. I could kill almost anything. Harold could grow almost anything."
"My wife had roses," Gerald said. "I killed them the first year after she died."
"How long has she been gone?"
"Six years."
Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then I asked, "Children?"
"Two daughters. Wonderful women. Very busy."
"My son is good too." I paused. "Also very busy."
Gerald lifted his glass. "And yet here we are."
I raised mine. "And here we are."
The following days carried us through Nuremberg, Munich, Salzburg, Innsbruck, and eventually Switzerland. Then came Innsbruck, and the mountains. I hadn't stood before mountains since a Colorado road trip with Harold in 1998. I'd forgotten what they did to perspective. They didn't make my problems disappear — they simply moved them farther away. Nicole's voice telling me to stay home moved backward. The empty Christmas house moved backward. Eight years of reshaping myself around everyone else's expectations moved backward.
The mountains remained. Huge. Silent. Indifferent.
Patricia came and stood beside me. She said nothing. I realized I hadn't had a friend who knew when silence was enough in a very long time.
By the seventh day, in Lucerne, I did something I almost never did. I posted photographs online. Christmas markets. Meals I couldn't pronounce. The ornaments. Then a photograph taken on Lucerne's famous wooden bridge — Patricia on one side, Gerald on the other, all three of us laughing, winter sunlight on the river behind us.
I looked happy. Not politely smiling. Laughing. I hadn't seen myself laugh like that in a photograph since Harold died.
Within two hours my phone filled with notifications. Old friends. Neighbors. Women from church. Harold's sister. People I hadn't spoken to in years. You look wonderful. Where are you? You look so happy. And several people asked: Who is the man?
The man was Gerald. Nothing more. But in the photograph, he stood close enough to create questions.
That evening, Dean called. "Mom. Who is that guy?"
"His name is Gerald. He's a retired teacher from Seattle."
"You look—" He stopped.
"Happy?" I offered.
"I was going to say comfortable."
"That too."
A pause. "I didn't know you were going to Europe."
"I didn't tell anyone."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want anyone giving me opinions about whether I should go."
Dean went quiet. "Mom... I'm sorry about Christmas."
"I know."
"Nicole should never have—"
"Dean."
He stopped. I looked around my hotel room. "I'm having a wonderful time. I'm in Switzerland. I've walked through Christmas markets and seen mountains and stood on a bridge that's centuries old. I've met people. I've laughed."
"You looked great in that picture."
"I feel great. I didn't know you wanted to do things like this."
"Neither did I," I said. "Not until your father reminded me. Not literally. But sometimes I still hear him in my head. He used to tell me I spent too much time looking after everyone else."
Dean sighed. "He was right."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"I know." Then I said, "Come to dinner when I get home. Bring Nicole. I'll make the pecan pie."
"Mom, you don't have to."
"I know. I want to. There's a difference."
That sentence changed something between us. Before ending the call, Dean said, "I love you."
"I love you too."
That night I wrote in the journal I'd started keeping: Day seven. Lucerne. Patricia. Gerald. The bridge. Dean called. I'm here. I'm actually here. Then: Harold was right. I should have been doing this years ago. I stared at the sentence, then added: But maybe I wasn't ready until now.
On the tenth day, Greta took the group to a small Alpine town not on the official itinerary. Patricia and I walked ahead to a snowy overlook.
"What are you going to do when you get home?" she asked. "Are you going back to exactly what you were doing before?"
I imagined the house, the decorations, the holidays where I'd gradually become an extra person inside other people's plans. Eight years of being useful without asking whether I was fulfilled.
"No," I said.
"What will you do instead?"
"I don't know yet. But it will be different."
Patricia nodded. "I started over at sixty-eight."
"I thought it was too late."
"Was it?"
"No."
"What changed?"
"I started saying yes."
"To what?"
She gestured toward the valley. "Trips. Conversations. Learning things I didn't need to learn. Being interested in the world instead of only being useful to one tiny part of it."
"Useful to one tiny part of it," I repeated quietly. "That's what I was."
"And?"
"It wasn't enough."
"No. It wasn't."
"I'm going to travel again," I said.
"Good."
"I'm going to call people instead of waiting for them to remember me."
"Good."
"And I'm going to decorate for Christmas only because I want to."
Patricia laughed. "You love decorating."
"I do."
"Then decorate."
"I will. But I won't do it as an offering to people who may or may not show up."
"That's different."
"I want to take another trip."
"So do I."
May you like
"Would you come?"
Patricia smiled. "I was going to ask you exactly the same thing."
