Let’s take the ferry to Staten Island, you said. The station is only a few blocks away.
Only a few blocks, I thought, my feet aching from a day of exploring. The sun was already low in the sky and a cold, December drizzle was settling in. Sensing my hesitation you added, it’s the best way to see Manhattan by night. And, it’s free.
Your enthusiasm for sharing the city you once called home won me over. I took your hand and you led me further south, to the very tip of the island, where we arrived just in time to board.
At this time of night, it was easy to find a window seat. Fellow passengers scrolled through their phones. A woman with neon fingernails nails shared the details of her day, laughing at commentary only she could hear.
There was Lady Liberty. She had had greeted my great uncle in 1941 and my father in 1959. Dad had been alarmed by the heavy police presence in his new adopted home. He later learned that he’d arrived on the same day Nikita Khrushchev spoke to the United Nations.
Let’s go outside, you said, interrupting my thoughts. We pushed through heavy metal doors and found ourselves alone on the deck. The city glowed bright against the darkening winter sky.
We captured the moment with a selfie. It’s a photo I studied many times in the coming year. Your cheeks are red with cold. My hair is wild in the wind. Our faces glow with the surprising delight of finding love in mid-life. Manhattan rises behind us, a forest of sparkling towers reaching for the sky. The city is beautiful from here, I had thought, a fitting tribute to American optimism that is too often tarnished by the gritty reality of its streets.
We would both fly home the next day – me to Canada, and you to France – with promises to meet up again, soon. But in a few weeks, those sparkling towers would go dark and that commuter ferry would sit largely empty as the virus that was quietly circulating suddenly took hold. An ocean would separate us, with no way to cross. And that spontaneous ferry ride would become the memory that would see me through to the other side.
I wrote this story for a Gotham Writers’ Workshop class and am posting today in honour of Valentine’s Day.