“Mark.”
He stopped.
Linda looked around her 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.”
Linda smiled.
“Neither did I.”
Then she added:
“Not until your father reminded me.”
“Dad?”
“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.”
Mark sighed.
“He was right.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
Then Linda said:
“Come to dinner when I get home. Bring Hannah. I’ll make the pecan pie.”
“Mom, you don’t have to.”
“I know.”
She smiled.
“I want to. There’s a difference.”
That sentence changed something between them.
Before ending the call, Mark said:
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
When Linda put the phone down, she opened the journal she had been writing in every night.
She hadn’t kept a journal since she was nineteen.
She had forgotten that writing something down was another way of keeping it.
That night she wrote:
*Day seven. Lucerne. Patricia. Gerald. The bridge. Mark called. I’m here. I’m actually here.*
Then:
*Paul was right. I should have been doing this years ago.*
She stared at the sentence.
Then added:
*But maybe I wasn’t ready until now.*
The thought felt important.
On the tenth day, Greta took the group to a small Alpine town not listed in the official itinerary.
