Chapter 15
After they left Paris, Estelle and Sam took a train to Lyon, then Marseille.
On the trains, they ate croissants and drank wine and talked about the successes of the tour so far.
Estelle couldn’t believe how decadent every day was.
She couldn’t believe how beautiful the sweeping hills of Avignon were.
“France seems like an endless dream,” she said.
The bookstores in those exquisite, more southern French towns greeted them warmly, and readers were excited, peppering Estelle with countless questions.
All the while, Estelle felt as though she floated in a sort of fantasy, one that had everything to do with traveling abroad—and falling for Albert.
She could hardly admit it to herself, but in the darkest hour of every night, there it sat in her heart: her refusal to stop believing in love.
When they reached Madrid, it was more than one hundred degrees. Estelle and Sam sat in the living room of their suite, the air conditioner on full blast. They’d had a very early train ride, and they were conked out.
July was not for the faint of heart.
Luckily, it was too hot for most everyone else in the city, and the manager at the bookstore, who was supposed to feature Estelle tonight, called to say the air-conditioning was out, and they would have to reschedule for the following day.
Otherwise, nobody would show up. “Can you stay in Madrid another night?” she asked.
Estelle was pleased to slow down just a little bit.
They’d been on the road for weeks at this point, and everything was beginning to blur before their eyes.
Sam immediately went to her bedroom to rest, recoup, and catch up on a few things, leaving Estelle to explore for a few hours before stopping in the café's shadow and pulling out her laptop.
The server took her wine order—rosé—and then left her to stare at her screen, conscious that something was about to pour out of her.
She wanted to write again. It felt insane. Was she brave enough to put together another story? Could she really do it?
But just as Albert had said, Estelle was a woman in her seventies, like so many other women around the world who’d lost their husbands.
An awful fact of science, of life, was that men often didn’t live as long as their wives.
The question was: what were their widows meant to do?
Were they supposed to spend the rest of their lives locked away, in mourning?
Were they meant to reflect forever on days they could never get back?
That didn’t seem like a good life philosophy, Estelle decided. But how could she transcribe it into a book?
Estelle began to experiment with a brand-new protagonist: a woman in her seventies who’d lost her husband, just as Estelle had.
But it would have bored Estelle to make her protagonist exactly like her.
She gave her a different career; she gave her a very different backstory, a different island to grow up on, and a very different husband.
Rather than dive immediately into the part of the story where her protagonist lost her husband, Estelle decided to start after the loss, during the part when her protagonist was searching for her new identity, her new beginning.
As she typed, the sun dropped lower in the sky and drew Spaniards out of their apartments and into the streets.
Finishing for the day, she closed her laptop and watched as the children of the city raced up and down the cobblestones, throwing and kicking balls, and calling out.
She knew that European kids—especially in the south—stayed up later than American kids.
There was something very funny about seeing a three-year-old waddling around after his older siblings, trying to keep up despite the lateness of the hour.
Sam came out to meet her for a glass of wine and dinner. She looked fresh and well-rested. “What were you up to all day?” she asked, studying the menu.
Estelle didn’t dare tell her daughter she was writing yet. She wasn’t sure what the story was yet. She needed to find the shape of it before she could bring Sam in.
That night, they swapped their previous French fare for Spanish food: roasted green peppers, ham, Spanish tortilla, and Manchego cheese.
The wine flowed along with the conversation.
Apparently, Sam had had a phone call with one of her old clients back at the hotel—a client whom she’d helped get off drugs a few years back.
“He wanted to tell me that he’s getting married,” Sam said, blushing as she tore at a slice of bread. “You know, when I first paired up with him, I really wasn’t sure if he would make it.”
Estelle squeezed her daughter’s wrist, overwhelmed with pride.
Sometimes it still hurt her to remember how unsupportive she and Roland had been of Sam’s chosen career.
Thinking of all the people Sam had helped over the years, it wasn’t difficult to imagine that Sam was the very best of the Colemans.
Estelle would never say so to Charlie and Hilary, of course.
“I think I might like Madrid,” Sam beamed as they strolled the streets after dinner. “I think I might like everywhere we travel together. It’s all been magical, Mom. Thanks for having me along.”
But the following evening, everything changed.
Estelle was at the bookstore, reading not only from her most recent release, but also from the few pages she’d typed the previous day. Her fans were captivated and pleased to be brought into her creative world prior to any agent or editor.
“This is an experiment,” Estelle told them, laughing. “Probably I’m not really allowed to do something like this. But, you know, what the heck? You only live once.”
When she finished reading the pages about the seventy-something widow, nearly every hand in the audience shot up. They had questions and responses.
Mostly, they were pleased that Estelle was writing about their own experiences—of being older women in the world who’d lost someone close.
After Estelle finished the Q Estelle had asked her if she should come back, too.
Darcy had urged her to stay in Europe till the end of the tour. “At least until Italy,” she’d begged.
As though Rachelle would just pop up. As though Rachelle would come to Estelle’s reading and apologize and pretend nothing had ever come between them.
Estelle went to the airport with Sam the following morning.
They hugged at departures, then separated.
Estelle waited until Sam disappeared into security before getting back into the taxi and returning to the train station.
Her train from Madrid to Lisbon was set to leave in half an hour, and she spent the remaining time with a newspaper and a cup of coffee, willing herself to be strong.
But without Sam around, she suddenly felt very lonely in Europe.
She willed every handsome seventy-something man around her to become Albert, to come over and say hello to her.
But none of them was Albert. None of them knew her as the famous Estelle Coleman.
When Estelle reached Lisbon, she checked into her hotel and walked the gorgeous streets of a city that felt far older and far stranger than Madrid.
It was sort of like San Francisco: tremendously hilly, with inclines that made her thighs burn.
For dinner, she stepped into a fish restaurant and dined alone, drinking Vino Verde and eating sea bass and potatoes.
Usually, Estelle had a rule about what you could and couldn’t do while you were eating.
Her most important rule was that you shouldn’t use your phone at the table.
But now, so far from her family and all alone, she found herself pulling out her phone as she ate.
Chewing the decadent, buttery fish, she watched herself type what she knew about him: Albert, New York City, sold company.
She didn’t think she’d find him. She felt foolish.
But to her surprise, there was an article in The Guardian about the sale of a company, a company that had been devoted to financial planning for the elite.
A photograph of Albert was attached. She read about the amount it had sold for—an incredible amount that put Roland’s money to shame—and felt her blood run cold.
Albert was not the ordinary sort of wealthy. He was a billionaire.
Why was he spending any time with her? He could probably date supermodels less than half her age. He could probably have five different girlfriends, all around the world.
What on earth was he doing with her on the Seine late at night, talking about his feelings?
More than that, what was he doing reading her books?
It boggled her mind.
She continued reading as much as she could about him.
It looked like he owned a number of high-roller restaurants, casinos, resorts, and cruise ship companies.
He’d been photographed with all manner of politicians and movie stars.
In some of the photographs, his ex-wife was featured.
She was a little bit younger, with plenty of plastic surgery.
Not that Estelle judged plastic surgery.
But it was clear she’d had a great deal of expensive work done, all on Albert’s dime, she was sure.
Estelle began to laugh softly. A few people in the restaurant noticed and glanced over at her. Probably, they thought she was a crazy lady, that she was an old woman in a restaurant, dining alone, showing how insane she’d gotten in her loneliness.
But truly, she was laughing because she knew she would never see Albert again. All she could thank him for, she supposed, was having opened the door back into her emotions. He’d reminded her that she was so much more than her grief. For that, she would remain thankful forever.