Australia was my fourth stop.
That was where I met Arthur.
He was seventy-one, widowed, gentle, and possessed the kind of dry humor that took a second before it made you laugh.
We met in a secondhand bookstore in Melbourne.
We both reached for the same detective novel.
He looked at my hand resting over his.
“I suppose at our age, fighting over it would be undignified.”
“At our age?”
He smiled.
“Fair point. You look thirty-five.”
“Now I know you’re dishonest.”
He laughed.
We had coffee that afternoon.
Then again two days later.
Soon we were taking long walks, browsing bookstores, listening to jazz, and arguing about whether roses were overrated.
“They’re needy,” Arthur told me.
“They’re flowers.”
“Exactly. Imagine being that demanding and not even paying rent.”
I laughed more around Arthur than I had in years.
He had been married to his wife, Anne, for thirty-eight years before she died.
