Somewhere over France
The lights in the airplane cabin come on suddenly.
I hear the ding! of the announcement system. It tells us that we are beginning our descent into Paris.
Julien leans over and adjusts my seat belt, making sure that my seat is in the locked, upright position. That I am safe.
“How does it feel to be landing in Paris again, Mom?”
I don’t know what to say.
* * *
Hours later, the phone beside me rings.
I am still more than half asleep when I answer it. “Hello?”
“Hey, Mom. Did you sleep?”
“I did.”
“It’s three o’clock. What time do you want to leave for the reunion?”
“Let’s walk around Paris. I can be ready in an hour.”
“I’ll come by and pick you up.”
I ease out of a bed the size of Nebraska and head for the marble-everywhere bathroom. A nice hot shower brings me back to myself and wakens me, but it isn’t until I am seated at the vanity, staring at my face magnified in the light-rimmed oval mirror, that it hits me.
I am home.
It doesn’t matter that I am an American citizen, that I have spent more of my life in the United States than in France; the truth is that none of that matters. I am home.
I apply makeup carefully. Then I brush the snow-white hair back from my face, creating a chignon at the nape of my neck with hands that won’t stop trembling. In the mirror, I see an elegant, ancient woman with velvety, pleated skin, glossy, pale pink lips, and worry in her eyes.
It is the best I can do.
Pushing back from the mirror, I go to the closet and withdraw the winter white slacks and turtleneck that I have brought with me. It occurs to me that perhaps color would have been a better choice. I wasn’t thinking when I packed.
I am ready when Julien arrives.
He guides me out into the hallway, helping me as if I am blind and disabled, and I let him lead me through the elegant hotel lobby and out into the magic light of Paris in springtime.
But when he asks the doorman for a taxi, I insist. “We will walk to the reunion.”
He frowns. “But it’s in the Île de la Cité.”
I wince at his pronunciation, but it is my own fault, really.
I see the doorman smile.
“My son loves maps,” I say. “And he has never been to Paris before.”
The man nods.
“It’s a long way, Mom,” Julien says, coming up to stand beside me. “And you’re…”
“Old?” I can’t help smiling. “I am also French.”