I strolled toward the river in silence, pulling my cardigan close as a chill crept into the air. All around me, Paris was alive with conversations, smiles, the quiet exchanges between couples, the happy laughter of friends crossing the bridge on the way to a bar or a café in the fifth. As I crossed the Pont Neuf and saw the Eiffel Tower glowing over the river to the west, I could feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes. They blurred the searchlight from the top of the tower before I could blink them back.
As I walked farther across the ?le de la Cité, the massive Conciergerie hulked in the shadows, a reminder of a time of sadness and horror when thousands were imprisoned and met their deaths during the French Revolution. To the left, Notre Dame basked in its own light across its broad, cobblestone courtyard, its many saints and gargoyles standing silent watch over the hushed clusters of tourists clutching guidebooks and speaking in whispers as they stared up at the fourteenth-century church in awe. Across the bridge on the Left Bank, the green-and-yellow cursive of the Café le Petit Pont glowed like a beacon, reminding me of my first night in Paris with Poppy and the interview I’d supervised between Guillaume and Gabe. Somehow, it all seemed so long ago.
I wandered for hours along the banks of the Seine, weaving down the Rue de la Huchette in the Latin Quarter then across the Petit Pont and Pont Notre-Dame and down the Rue de Rivoli on the Right Bank. The quaint cobblestone of the Marais gave way to the Pont Marie and then, as I wove back, to the regal buildings of the Place des Vosges, where Victor Hugo once sat and created a hunchback named Quasimodo to ring the bells of Notre Dame. By the time I had strolled back to the Pont Neuf to take one last look west down the Seine toward the Eiffel Tower, it was past midnight, the tourists had disappeared, and I felt like I had the city—or at least the tip of the island—all to myself. The ripples of the Seine kissed the embankment in a soothing tempo, and the moonlight reflected in the river mixed with the light cast from the buildings that had been host to kings and saints and history in all its forms.
I would miss it here. I would miss it a lot.
I took the RER from the Saint-Michel stop back to the Pont de l’Alma and walked up Avenue Rapp to our street. As always, the moment I turned right onto Rue de Général-Camou, the Eiffel Tower loomed enormous at the end of the short lane. Usually, it was a thrill to see it. Tonight it just felt hauntingly sad. In Orlando, the only thing that loomed at the end of my street had been a big traffic light. Here, one of the most beautiful monuments in the world sat just feet away, shining with golden light in the darkness.
I didn’t sleep that night. I couldn’t. I crawled into bed and closed my eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend my last hours in Paris that way. Eventually, I got up and walked to the living room window, where I sat with a bottle of Beaujolais and a crusty baguette, gazing at the Eiffel Tower long after the lights had gone out and it was just a dark silhouette against the distant rooftops of the city.
It was dawn before I realized that there were tears rolling down my cheeks. I wondered how long I’d been crying. As the first birds of the morning began to chirp and the sky turned gradually from inky blue to a blend of sunrise pastels, illuminating the steel of the tower, I got up from the window, took a shower, brushed my teeth, and went out for a walk. By the time Poppy and I had finished the pains au chocolat I’d brought home from the patisserie on the corner, along with the espresso she silently made in the kitchen, I still wasn’t ready to go. But it was time. Poppy walked me over to the taxi stand on Avenue Bosquet, and with one last hug good-bye, I was on my way. But I wasn’t so sure anymore that the place I was going to was home.
Because Brett had moved back into our old house and because I had no desire whatsoever to see any of my three so-called best friends in Orlando, I had nowhere to go when I got back to the States but to my sister Jeannie’s place.
“I told you it was a bad idea to move to Paris,” Jeannie said when she opened the door of her Winter Park home to find me and two giant suitcases waiting on the doorstep at 11 p.m. She’d been too busy to come pick me up at the airport, so I’d had to take a cab, to the tune of fifty-five dollars, which was not exactly the way I’d envisioned starting my life as an unemployed American. “I don’t want to say I told you so, but, well . . .” Her voice trailed off and she smiled sweetly at me.
“You know the story, Jeannie,” I’d answered wearily. After a grueling eight-hour flight from Paris to Detroit, a three-hour layover, and then a three-hour flight to Orlando, I was in no mood to argue with my sister.
“You have to admit, it was really immature to go to Paris on some silly whim,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re going to have to grow up someday, Emma.” I bit my lip, figuring that things would be better all around if I didn’t reply. She turned away, leaving me to drag the suitcases inside myself. “Try to be quiet, Em,” she said over her shoulder. “Robert and Odysseus are in bed!”
Ah. I wouldn’t want to disturb her husband. Or King Odysseus, as I liked to call her spoiled three-year-old.