Evening in Paris - Tamar

Looking at Paris in this light, with the sky pulling a huge fluffy blanket of pinks around its shoulders, I realize how amazing the past few days have been. Here I sit, on a petit veranda that separates the room I rent in the charming 19th century inn from the amazing view of the skyline, and I almost tremble in anticipation of where I will go next. One week is hardly enough to absorb all the history, hardly enough to make my own new history, but move on I must.

I wonder if my husband has realized yet that I am gone. I wonder if he has gone from missing me as in ‘where the heck is my dinner’ or ‘how come I have no clean jeans’, to the point where he will call the hospitals and the morgue; where he will stumble to the police station with my crumpled photo in his hand and a vague description of what I was wearing the last time he saw me flickering in the corner of his brain.

As I place my empty wineglass on the table and wait for Jacques, the garcon from the bistro on the corner who insisted on walking me back to the inn, to once again fill it to the brim with the sweetness of the red grape, my mind wanders back to my before life. I spent most of my energy trying to keep my two teenage sons in school and out of jail; they had both developed a love for cannabis and the cheapest vodka they could buy with their fake ID’s and scruffy faces. One already had a 5-year prohibition on his driver’s licence; the other was on probation for breaking into a seniors’ home with the hope of stealing narcotics and sedatives.

My husband, on the other hand, was seldom in trouble with the law; he remained a hard working and a hard drinking longshoreman whose only goals in life were cold beer and a willing woman. I imagine him now, rolling over in bed and grabbing me, but getting a pillow instead. A grunt, a curse and an arthritic lurch onto the floor, then to the bathroom for a long pee and a fart; I don’t miss my early morning wake-up call at all.

Soft tendrils of guitar music waft like smoke from the room beneath mine; and I lean back in the chair and breathe the notes, and the soft air, and the now fuchsia and purple sky deep into my lungs. I know it won’t be long before he realizes I‘m the lucky one who held the 14 million dollar lottery ticket in my hand, the ticket I bought with the last two dollars I will ever steal from his jeans’ pocket while he lies snoring in front of the television. However, it won’t matter to me.

There’s a lot of world for me to find, and I plan to trip through every inch of it; I only have to stay a step ahead and a heartbeat away.