For the sixteenth time that day, I watched Kevin Costner stand stoically on the tarmac, arm in a sling, staring at an airplane window framing Whitney Houston’s silhouette. As she ordered the taxiing plane to a halt and sprinted down its steps into his embrace—her iconic ballad swelling in the background—I felt a vicarious twinge in my heart.
Painful and euphoric at the same time.
It had been a week since I’d gotten back from the road trip to Maine, and the leather bag still sat on the living room floor, yet to be unpacked.
Sebastian and I had hardly said a word to each other on the seven-hour drive back home, except for one brief conversation somewhere in the southeast corner of New Hampshire. I’d been so deep in my own thoughts, my mind swirling in the romance of Hugo and Claudia, that I jumped when he spoke.
“We’re definitely not telling Grandma about any of this,” he said abruptly. “There’s no point.”
Since I’d spent the last three hours excitedly planning exactly how to reveal the news to Claudia, this came as a surprise.
“But it would bring her some peace to hear that Hugo always loved her. She deserves to know.”
Sebastian glared at the horizon, clenching the steering wheel. “Deserves to know that the supposed love of her life was living a car ride away for the past sixty years? That she could’ve lived an entirely different life from the one she apparently now regrets, even though she has a family who loves her? No way.”
I swallowed the words of protest forming in my throat. He had a point. It must have hurt to find out that his grandmother had spent most of her married life unhappy. And I’d never forgive myself if I caused Claudia to die with even more regrets than she already had.
But it somehow still felt wrong not to tell her.
“Okay,” I said, consciously stripping my voice of emotion. “She’s your grandma, so it’s your decision.”
I slumped back in my seat and stared out the window for the rest of the drive while Sebastian buffered our simmering silence with an endless procession of podcasts.
And for the week since our trip, I’d made sure to schedule my visits to Claudia for when I knew he’d be at work. After his bleak assessment of my life choices, it seemed we had nothing more to say to each other.
* * *
Squinting against the darkness even though it was early afternoon, I switched on the reading lamp by Grandpa’s chair. I hadn’t opened the blinds since my confrontation with Sylvie—I still didn’t want to imagine what might be taking place in the windows across the street. I’d timed most of my exits from my apartment to early morning and late evening, so I’d managed to avoid her completely. And I’d told Leo that I’d come down with the flu and didn’t want to infect him.
I didn’t even feel like going to a death café. I just wanted to be alone.
Snuggling George against my stomach, I resisted the impulse to replay the scene a seventeenth time. Yesterday I’d binged on Tom Cruise’s manically earnest declaration of love to Renée Zellweger. The day before that, it was Hugh Grant interrupting Julia Roberts’s press conference to profess his love. But no matter how many times I watched, or mouthed the words along with them, the truth still stung.
Some people just didn’t get a happy ending, even if I tried my best to give them one.
And that made my chances of a happy ending, even if I wasn’t sure what that would look like, feel even further away.
I forced myself to turn off the TV—this cycle of binge-watching wasn’t numbing my loneliness like it usually did. I looked around my apartment for an alternative. All I could see were reminders of Grandpa—his insects frozen in resin, his beloved kangaroo skull, his tarnished brass compass—and it hit me how disappointed he would be in me. Instead of following in his footsteps, engaging my curiosity by traveling the world and decoding its patterns, I’d become a loner with an increasing penchant for dishonesty. Someone who spied on her neighbors and chose to spend her time with dying people so she didn’t have to develop lasting relationships with anyone.
Sebastian was right—I was a hypocrite. I spent my days looking death in the face and I still hadn’t found a way to manage my own grief. I’d been clinging on to Grandpa’s memory, and his possessions, even though he was long gone. And I dedicated more time to honoring the lessons and wisdom of other people’s lives than I did to living my own.
But the notebook ritual was the one thing that I knew could help pull me out of this sense of hopelessness.
I grabbed the REGRETS book from the shelf, closed my eyes, and allowed it to fall open to a random page.
Jack Rainer, a fifty-six-year-old lawyer with long eyelashes, a dry sense of humor, and an inoperable brain tumor.
I wish I’d learned my wife’s native language.
When he met Ditya, a pastry chef, on a business trip to Kathmandu, her English had consisted of the pop lyrics she’d learned via her passion for karaoke. But when she moved to be with him in New York, she worked hard to learn the language so that she could communicate with him and his friends and eventually open her own patisserie in Midtown.
“You know, I never bothered to learn Nepali because I thought I had no use for it,” Jack had told me days before the tumor began to suppress his speech. It had already stolen his eyesight, so he spoke to my general vicinity rather than directly to me. “But I was bored waiting at the dentist last year and the only thing to read was a book of inspirational quotes. And there was one from Nelson Mandela that said, ‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.’”
I pressed my hand to his arm. “That’s beautiful—I’ve never heard that one.”
“It made me realize that all the times I complimented her, it was always in English. I never even thought to ask how to say it in her language. So I never really spoke to her heart.”
Balancing the notebook on the chair arm, I reached for my laptop. I’d probably never have a use for Nepali either, but, in Jack’s memory, I could learn the basics. I signed up for a two-week online course, starting next month.
One small step forward. I felt a little better already.
I flipped through the notebook, planning how many people’s regrets I could honor in the time before my next visit with Claudia.
Alison, a nun who’d always wanted to dye her hair blue.
Una, a bank CEO who’d never gone ice-skating in Central Park.
Harry, a kindhearted carpenter who’d wished he’d ignored his brothers’ taunts and learned how to knit.
I might even adopt a hamster for Guillermo.
And when I was finished, maybe it was time I addressed my own regrets.
45
The back of my jeans was still damp from repeatedly falling on the ice. And judging from the ache in my butt and thighs, I’d just used muscles that had been dormant for years. But as I limped away from the Wollman Rink in Central Park later that afternoon, I felt like I’d been useful.
While shuffling around the ice rink, daring myself to let go of the rail, I had imagined Una skating next to me, her high cheekbones flushed with red. I’d breathed in the smell of roasted chestnuts floating from the stand on Fifth Avenue. I’d marveled at the twisted tree limbs contrasting with the clean geometry of shiny skyscrapers. I’d laughed at the toddlers in their puffy coats, envying their low centers of gravity as they glided fearlessly past me on the ice. Thanks to Una, I’d never regret not going ice-skating in Central Park. And hopefully she’d been with me in spirit.
Now I had to find some blue hair dye and knitting needles.
As I dug for my phone in my coat to google nearby craft stores, I felt it vibrating with a call.