by Olga Katsovskiy

I squeezed Mom’s hand over the armrest, watching her look out the window at takeoff. After Dad died, she barely left the house for a year. She wore a narrow black silk scarf around her neck like a noose. “Let’s go to Paris,” I said, and her face lit up. She professed to be a homebody only to make Dad happy.

Two hundred miles was the farthest we traveled when he was around, the trunk packed with bags and two coolers worth of microwavable sausages, salami, Mom’s salads, and cherry tomatoes in reused cottage cheese containers held tight with rubber bands, Lay’s potato chips, a loaf of rye bread, and a hot rotisserie chicken picked on the way for the pit stop lunch in the woods. We would climb down to the creek and picnic on a boulder over the stream, Mom snapping photos while I balanced on the slippery rocks.

I always called to make reservations, making sure our AAA discount was applied. Mom was the brain of the operation, with the road atlas in the front passenger seat and Dad behind the wheel. Our route was outlined in black Sharpie, a star around the liquor store where we stopped for a restroom break and bought tax-free bottles of Hennessy and a dark chocolate Lady Godiva. We drove with the windows down, Dad’s mixed CD playing on a loop, the car vibrating with the wind and Mom’s laughter.

My parents loved the lodge, walking in the green expanse to the sports center in the evenings. They loved the fact we mostly had the place to ourselves. We swam zigzags in the pool, stretched out in the indoor jacuzzi, Mom’s swimsuit skirt pockets inverting and ballooning out of the water like kid floaties. In a steamy sauna, she yelled at Dad to stop messing with the temperature sensor. Dad loved the sauna heat, the hotter the better. We perched on the tile shelves, turning red as long as we could stand, my flip-flops nearly melting. I’d reach for Mom’s dripping hot shoulder through the fog, feeling for the way out.

After we’d shower at the gym, we’d go back to the lodge, my hair damp, breathing in the cool mountain air. My parents walked in front of me, their arms wrapped around each other’s waist. I’d follow their embracing figures, swaying side to side like a pair of wobble dolls, growing smaller ahead of me, the night pulsating with buzzing insects and falling stars. In our room, we ate Mom’s mini salami sandwiches and clinked our tea mugs together. I’d lay in bed with my journal, my parents playing cards, listening to Mom’s stories. Dad didn’t say much, but he had a way of making her talk a mile a minute. She would burst out laughing, infecting me, and I’d join in and laugh so hard I couldn’t see straight.

—

She hadn’t been on a plane in decades. I was in awe of her wonder, the way she sank back in her seat, adjusting her seatbelt and studying the safety pamphlet and in-flight menu. After dinner, she attempted to pack away a leftover bread roll in an air sickness bag. I assured her there would be plenty of snacks later and explained the real purpose of those slim white paper bags. Her face flushed and she transferred the roll into one of the many Ziploc bags in her purse. When they served coffee, she carefully examined the logo on her napkin and folded it away, too.

I splurged on a beautiful attic room in the heart of the city. When we got there, we immediately rushed to the window to draw open the curtains. We marveled at the gray Parisian rooftops stretched as far as the eye can see, an assortment of tiny beige chimneys like hundreds of ships anchored in place. It was as though a postcard came alive. At the breakfast buffet, Mom clapped her hands in a giddy prayer, seeing all the little croissants, yogurts, cheese platter, eggs, and finger sausages. We mixed hot chocolate in our cappuccinos to our hearts’ desires.

We walked arm-in-arm wherever our senses led us, finding hidden gardens passing through alleyways and side streets. Parisian sidewalks are lined with thin black steel posts, on which Mom leaned whenever she grew tired of walking. Near our hotel, we found a manicured garden with rows and rows of divine roses. We loved sitting on the steel green chairs by the small fountain in the center, listening to the ducks splash, and breathing in the flowers. The same old gentleman rustled his newspaper on a bench across from us every morning, puffs of smoke rising above his tweed cap.

At the embankment, she leaned on the stone parapet by the bridge, looking out across the Seine. Dad’s gold wedding band sparkled on her necklace. She touched it and pressed her palms to the warm stone. Someday, I will write about our grief, I thought, not realizing I’d be writing about what comes after. She used to brace herself against the dashboard as our ears popped driving up the mountain. She’d press her palm on the hard plastic, the spiral-bound atlas on her lap as if to say – we’re here.

—

We shook in our seats at takeoff, our shoulders touching. She kept her eyes downcast, furrowing her brows at her chest. I looked into her watery eyes, expecting her to cry or say something profound. “They jiggle!” she said, and we both tilted our heads back and burst into laughter–ridiculous, gut-wrenching, howling laughter.

Our first night, over three thousand miles from home, we pushed our single beds together. Mom read one of her old favorite romance novels in bed, and I looked out at the glowing Eiffel Tower in the distance. She read me her favorite passages aloud. The one about our heroine’s girlfriend talking her into getting a fashionable Parisian pixie haircut now that her husband had left her seemed fitting. I loved hearing her commentary between the words, but most of all, I loved hearing her voice.

A blue glow swept across the foot of our beds from our window, disappeared, and came back again. We had no idea the Eiffel Tower had a beacon light. We stayed up late, taken by the sight, brewing strawberry tea. Mom produced a Ziploc bag with miniature croissants, a little squished but still delicious. We tore off small pieces while sipping tea, following the guiding light, thinking we finally made it.

Olga Katsovskiy, writer/editor/educator, works in healthcare and teaches creative writing classes at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. She serves on editorial teams at several literary magazines and drinks a lot of coffee. Her essays have appeared in Atticus Review: The Attic, Barzakh Magazine, Brevity Blog, Pithead Chapel, Short Reads, true magazine, and elsewhere. Find more at theweightofaletter.com or connect with her on Instagram @theweightofaletter.