“I tell them no. At first they got angry. They stopped visiting me for months. But later they realized that their dad was not a fool they were going to manipulate easily.”
David was right. But it hurt so much to reach that realization.
“It is just that Sarah is my only daughter. I raised her alone after her father left.”
“And for that very reason, Mrs. Emily, you gave her everything. Now she thinks she has a right to everything of yours.”
A pigeon approached my feet and looked at me expectantly. David gave me some crumbs.
“Take it. This one is named Hope. She is the bravest of all.”
Feeding Hope calmed me down. There was something comforting in that small act of generosity without expectations.
“David, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“How did you learn to be alone without being lonely?”
He stood thinking for a moment, looking toward the fountain where a young mother was chasing her small son.
“I think I started to understand it when I stopped waiting for others to fill my life and started filling it myself. At first it was hard. I was used to my day revolving around my wife. When she died, I did not know what to do with myself.”
“And what did you do?”
“I started small. I got up one day and decided to learn to cook something other than fried eggs. Then I decided to fix broken things around the house myself instead of calling my children. Then I started going out for walks without a fixed destination.”
“And when did you know you were okay?”
“The day I realized I could spend a whole day without looking at the phone, waiting for someone to call me. The day I got up excited about something I was going to do for myself.”
His words hit deep. It had been years since I got up excited about something that was just for me.
“David, do you think I am too old to start over?”
“Mrs. Emily, my grandmother started learning piano at seventy. She said she had been too busy raising children and grandchildren to do something for pure fun. She died at eighty-five playing a waltz.”
I smiled for the first time in days.
“Really?”
“And you are sixty-five? You have at least twenty years to learn piano, painting, dancing, French cooking, whatever comes to your mind.”
I remained quiet for a moment, watching how Hope pecked the crumbs around my feet.
“David, can I tell you a secret?”
“Sure.”
“My whole adult life, I dedicated myself to being the perfect mom for Sarah. I worked, cooked, cleaned, helped her with homework, went to school meetings. I never had time to ask myself what I liked. And now… now I realize I do not even know what my favorite color is.”
“I always bought clothes thinking about what was practical, not what I liked.”
“What color are you wearing today?”
I looked at my dark green dress.
“Green.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes. It makes me feel elegant.”
