My husband died ten years ago. Since then I have been on my own.
My children moved to other states, and after I retired I started to feel uncomfortable in my own house.
My life was the same day on repeat. I got up, I did jobs that did not need doing, I rang the children, I walked the dog, and then I did it again.
Then one morning, sitting on my own in that kitchen, something went through me.
Why was I living as though my life had already finished?
For years I had wanted to drive across the country. See the places. Wake up somewhere different. Do one thing that was only mine.
So I sold the house and bought a small RV.
I know how that sounds. For the first time in a decade I felt something move in my chest.
I packed two cases, put Rex in the passenger footwell, and went.
I drove through small towns. I watched the sun come up over mountains. I made coffee in a kitchen the size of a cupboard.
Two weeks in I reached Arizona.
That afternoon I stopped at a roadside diner for lunch. I sat by the window and ordered pancakes and coffee, and a few minutes later a man came and stood at my table.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Every other table’s taken. Would you mind?”
I said not at all.
His name was Robert. Seventy years old, kind eyes, silver hair, and a laugh that made the two women behind the counter look over.
We started talking and I was still there two hours later.
He told me he had buried his wife and raised his daughter on his own.
I have not felt as comfortable with anybody in ten years as I did at that table. Then he asked if he could take me to dinner.
I said yes.
So I stayed. A few days turned into three weeks.
We walked every day. We talked about everything. I told him about Daniel, about the forty-one years, about the hospital, about how I had not been able to go into the garage for about a year afterwards.
He listened the way almost nobody listens.
Then he asked me to the house for dinner.
He lives about twenty minutes outside Flagstaff.
His daughter Hannah met us at the door. She is about thirty-four. The three of us sat down to eat.
And something was wrong from the first plate.
She was polite and she was cold. She kept looking at me — not the way you look at a stranger your father has brought home, but the way you look at somebody when you are waiting to see whether they are going to say something.
I got so uncomfortable that I excused myself.
I stood in that bathroom for a few minutes with my hands on the sink, telling myself I was being ridiculous, that she had lost her mother, that of course this was strange for her.
Then I came out into the hallway and I heard her voice from the kitchen.
“Have you lost your mind? What if she recognised you?”
