“People told me I was too old to start over. So I retired and started over anyway.”

Linda immediately liked her.

Nearby were Dennis and Beverly, a Chicago couple who had been married for forty-three years.

They moved through the airport as though they had practiced it for decades.

Beverly glanced at a bag.

Dennis picked it up.

Dennis made a tiny gesture toward the escalator.

Beverly understood immediately.

Watching them hurt more than Linda expected.

She had once been half of a partnership like that.

Paul had been good at dreaming.

Linda had been good at making those dreams happen.

Together, they had moved through life almost without speaking.

Now she was only one person.

For thirty seconds, the thought threatened to pull her backward.

Then Greta began walking.

Linda followed.

She had not crossed an ocean to spend twelve days grieving something she could not change.

Their first stop was Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a medieval Bavarian town that looked so perfect Linda wrote in her new journal that it resembled the inside of a snow globe.

There were timbered buildings, steep roofs, cobblestone streets, and a Christmas market glowing beneath strings of warm lights.

That market became the first moment when Linda knew she had made the right decision.

Patricia walked beside her through rows of wooden stalls.

She bought a small ornament.

“I collect these instead of photographs,” Patricia explained. “Pictures disappear into your phone. Ornaments come out once a year and force you to remember.”

“Do you have a Christmas tree at home?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“For yourself?”

Linda thought about the decorations waiting in Ohio.

“It started as a tree for my son and daughter-in-law.”

She smiled.

“But I suppose it ended up being for me.”

Patricia nodded.

“That sounds like a better ending.”

Linda bought an ornament too.

A delicate glass globe with a tiny winter village inside.