***
Arthur and I kept talking.
Every day.
Six months later, I returned to Australia.
Not because Robert had subliminally sent me there, or because my children had pushed me away.
I did it because I wanted to.
Arthur and I kept talking.
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Arthur met me at the airport, holding a tiny cardboard sign that said:
“ABIGAIL – COFFEE STILL OWED!”
I laughed so hard that I cried!
***
I still travel.
Sometimes with Arthur.
Sometimes alone.
I still travel.
And the painting now hangs in the little apartment Arthur and I share part of the year.
Below it, framed beside Robert’s letter, is a receipt from the first coffee Arthur bought me after I returned.
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Twelve dollars exactly.
***
At my age, I thought selling my house meant I was walking away from the life I’d built.
I was wrong.
The painting now hangs in the little apartment.
I was finally walking into the part of it I’d kept postponing.
And somehow, halfway around the world, I found a piece of the man I loved and one I never expected to befriend.
For the first time in my life, “someday” wasn’t waiting for me anymore.
I was already there.
