Helen had never lied to her daughter until she booked a secret flight to meet a man from Facebook. By the time she reached his front porch, she was already wondering whether ignoring every warning sign had been brave or foolish.
I booked the flight without telling him because I wanted to see his face when he opened that door.
I’m 62.
Thirty-one years of marriage ended in March, in a lawyer’s office, with both of us being very polite about it.
My ex-husband kept the dog.
I kept the house, and every room in it.
I didn’t understand how loud an empty house could be until then.
The refrigerator clicked.
The pipes knocked.
The floorboards complained when the temperature changed.
At four in the afternoon, sunlight came through the kitchen window exactly the way it always had.
However, this time, nobody was walking in to ask what was for dinner.
My daughter, Claire, set up a Facebook account for me in April.
“You need something to do,” she said.
“I have email.”
“That is not something. Connect with people online.”
“I have books to read.”
“Mom, you need friends who are not just fictional characters.”
“I have gardening.”
She sighed. “Just try Facebook.”
So I did. I posted photographs of the garden, mostly hydrangeas.
One afternoon, a man named David commented under a picture of one of my hydrangeas.
“Looks like they are infected. Remove the worst leaves and water at the base, not overhead.”
I stared at the comment. Then I looked it up.
He was right.
So, I replied.
He then sent me a message.
That’s how it started.
With hydrangeas.
We talked every day through spring and all summer.
We weren’t flirting at first, just talking.
He told me his wife had died four years earlier.
I told him about my divorce.
He was the first person I had spoken to who seemed to understand what loneliness sounded like.
The quiet kind.
The kind where you make too much coffee because you haven’t adjusted to one cup yet.
The kind where you hear something funny on television and turn your head before remembering there is nobody beside you.
Every morning, David sent me a photograph of his coffee.
Same mug.
Green and chipped on the handle.
Sometimes the newspaper was behind it. Sometimes a plant.
Sometimes one of his hydrangeas through the kitchen window.
He lived 1,100 miles away in a small town.
Early on, I asked which part of the town he lived in.
He told me the town and the name of his street.
He added, “It’s a beautiful place. Not easy to miss, as hydrangeas are under the front window.”
After that, he occasionally sent photographs of the front garden.
One showed the porch, another the white rail and the three steps.
Others showed the crooked house number.
Another showed the hydrangeas in bloom.
When mine finally came into full color in July, I sent him a picture.
He responded in about 90 seconds.
“Look at those. Told you they’d recover.”
I smiled at my phone for a stupid amount of time.
We never video-called.
There was always a reason.
His old phone or bad signal.
He hated cameras.
Once he said, “At our age, mirrors are already rude enough. Why invite a camera?”
I laughed, but I noticed. I noticed every single time.
And every single time I decided it didn’t matter.
I’ve spent 40 years being the sensible one.
The woman who checks the weather.
The woman who reads the fine print.
The woman who spots the problem before everyone else.
I was tired of being the person who ruined things by asking one question too many.
So when August came, I did something very unlike me.
I booked a flight.
I didn’t tell David.
I told Claire I was going away with a friend for a spa weekend.
That part still makes me feel guilty.
I had never lied to my daughter before.
Eleven hundred miles.
I had my hair done the day before.
I bought a pale green linen jacket.
I had not worn pale green since I was 30.
I almost returned it. Then I kept it.
