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How far was I from home?

I could barely make out the street sign in front of the apartment. If I was seeing correctly, I was only a few blocks away. I couldn’t hear anyone on the streets at all. A big metropolis like Philadelphia, and there was no one on the street. At that point, though, I couldn’t have cared less who saw me. By that point, home was the only thing on my mind. I just wanted to get to the safety of my home. I just wanted to go to bed and stay there. Block after block I walked, squinting my eyes, hearing the trudging sound of the sneakers against the pavement as I made my way down the street. All around me I could see lights from storefronts glowing in reds and yellows and blues. These lights were my only guide. I knew that the big smear of red light on
Chestnut Street had to be the sign over the Continental Restaurant. I wasn’t far. I just kept thinking,
Just a few more blocks and I’ll be home. Safe.

Only a few hours before I had been happy—more than happy, exhilarated and excited. Now I was sadder than I’d ever been in my entire life. But it was the right thing to do. It was right that I turned back to seventy-five. Still, I was mourning what might have been.

I found my way to Rittenhouse Square, my street, and turned toward my building. I could see a figure standing some ways down.

“Mrs. Jerome?” I heard the voice call out.

I stopped. “Ken?” I squinted my eyes to try to get a better look.

I could see the figure of him walking briskly toward me. When he put his hand on my shoulder, I knew that I was finally home.

“Are you okay, Mrs. Jerome?” he asked me.

“I’m fine,” I told him as we walked toward the door. “Don’t you ever get an hour off from work?” I asked him as he helped me through the door.

“Your family was worried about you, so I gave Carl, the night man, the night off. “I’ve been watching for you all night.”

“Thank you, Ken,” I told him as I heard the elevator door open. “Are they up there?”

“They’re all up there. Mrs. Sustamorn came down a little while ago, but then she went back up. She waited with me for a little bit, but I told her to go back up and try to get some sleep.”

“Thank you for looking out for my family,” I told him as he pressed the elevator button.

“Do you need help up?” he asked.

“Thank you,” I said, jingling my keys. “I can take it from here. You’ve been very kind.”

“You’ve always been pretty nice to me, too, Mrs. J. I’m glad you’re back,” he said kindly as the elevator door shut.

I opened the door to my apartment and saw the fuzzy images of three sleeping bodies spread out on my couches and chairs. I didn’t want to speak to any of them. I just needed to think about what this day meant.

“Gram?” I heard Lucy call softly as I saw one figure rise slowly from a chair.

“Yes,” I called back. “It’s me. I’m going to sleep.”

“Ellie?” I heard Frida call to me as I headed to my bedroom. I turned toward her.

“Your back must be hurting as much as mine is right now, Frida. Go upstairs and get into your own bed.”

I walked into my bedroom and over to my bedside table, where I knew I had left my glasses. I put them on and the world finally came into view.

“Mom?” I heard and I turned to see Barbara standing in my doorway. She was in one of my robes. The belt barely wrapped around her body. Her hair was loose from its usual tied-back look and was hanging straggly around her face. Oddly, she looked better.

“Barbara,” I said and sighed. “Before you start in on me, I’m very tired right now, and I would like to go to sleep.”

“I wasn’t going to start in.” She exhaled and smiled lightly. “I’m just glad you’re home.”

I paused, not knowing what to say. I was forgetting all that
we had discussed earlier that evening. “Well, thank you,” I said. “I just need some rest right now.”

“Mom?” she asked, coming toward me.

“What is it?” I asked.

She put her arms around me and gave me a big hug, resting her head on my shoulder. I didn’t want to hug her back. I didn’t want to hug anyone at that moment, but I couldn’t just shoo her away, even though I didn’t want to be touched. I was still wrapped up in my own thoughts, and I wasn’t ready to deal with anything. So I put one arm around her and patted her back for a moment, but she kept hugging me. She wouldn’t stop. So I opened my arms around her and hugged her back. I rested my head on her shoulder and relaxed my body until she was almost holding me up. I realized I needed that hug, and not the other way around.

A moment later we stopped hugging and she smiled at me. I smiled back.

“Barbara, I love you so much,” I told her as I combed the hair hanging in her face behind her ears with my fingers. “You mean more to me than you will ever know.”

“I love you, too, Mom,” she answered.

“I want to talk, I do. I want things to be right between us.”

“So do I, Mom. I don’t know how things got so crazy between us.”

“I know, and I’m sorry for that. Right now, though, I need to rest. Once my head is clear we’ll talk about everything.”

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?” she asked me.

“No, thank you, sweetheart. I just need some time to think.”

“You’ll call me if you need anything,” she said.

“Yes. I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll shut the door so you won’t be disturbed,” she said, walking out and closing the door lightly behind her.

I walked over to my closet and began to take off Zachary’s clothes. Next to me was my full-length mirror. How I got through the streets looking like I did I’ll never know. Thank goodness Zachary never woke up. Oh, thank goodness! In front of me was an old woman, old and shriveled. I almost forgot who that woman was. I bent down as easily as I could and slipped off Zachary’s shoes, then his sweatpants, then the ratty T-shirt I had thrown on. I felt like I looked, like I had aged almost fifty years. I couldn’t look anymore. I stuffed the outfit deep in the back of my closet, where those dude-ranch blue jeans used to be. I would pick those jeans off my bedroom floor later. All I wanted to do now was get into bed.

I threw on one of my old nightgowns and walked out of my closet and over to my bed.

As I rested my head on the pillow, I looked around the room. Only twenty-four hours earlier, I’d loved that room so much. Now it was everything to do with the past I seemed to be stuck with. I was confused.

Why did I wish to be younger? How would it have answered the one question I needed answered? If Zachary wasn’t the answer, then what was? Who was my soul mate? Was it Howard? I still didn’t know. Did I love him? Did I ever love him?

On my seventy-sixth birthday, should I wish to start my life over at twenty-nine, and not for just one day?

I took off my glasses as I rolled over onto my stomach. I positioned my boobs more comfortably. There was nothing more I needed to see that day.

I leaned over and turned off my light.

And I wished.

I wished that I was content with my life; that even though I didn’t know the answer to my question, that even though I might never know the answer, this pain in my heart would leave.

I wished and wished.

And as I lay there in the dark with my eyes wide open, I thought about it rationally. That’s what a seventy-five-year-old woman does—she rationalizes. After all, she’s used to it after all those years. For the first time in my life, though, I knew that there was no point to wishing or wanting or trying to recapture youth.

It was that simple.

I had to leave Zachary and our life together behind. My second chance at life lay ahead of me, with the family I loved. But a wise and rational woman can also feel sadness and regret.

As much as I tried to rationalize, the sadness kept raging inside of me.

For the rest of my life, I would never be twenty-nine again.

frida’s day after

Frida Freedberg slept like a log.

The next morning she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. How comforting it was to see her ceiling. She was back in her own warm bed. She bent her legs and pulled her body in as she wrapped the covers tighter around herself.

She glanced over at her clock and saw that it was half past eleven in the morning. Frida always slept late, but this was much later than usual. She had missed her morning programs, but so be it.

She got out of bed and took a shower. She wasn’t very hungry that morning, so she just made some toast and ate it as quickly as she could.

She had a lot of things to do that day. Well, there was one thing in particular she wanted to do, but it would take a couple of hours to get up the nerve.

She went into her closet and pulled out the pair of blue jeans she never wore, the ones she got with Ellie that time they went to the dude ranch. Frida had chickened out of getting on the
horses, so she’d just stayed in her muumuu and sipped iced tea by the pool. The jeans were a little snug, even with her girdle on underneath, but no bother. They would fit as the months went by. They’d even get too big, and she’d have to buy another pair if she stuck to the diet she was planning.

She matched the jeans with one of her dead husband Sol’s old blue oxford shirts. To make the outfit look more feminine, she threw on some long gold chains she hadn’t worn in twenty years, and finished the look off with a pair of gold stud earrings. She put on her sneakers from the day before and was ready to leave the house by noon.

She grabbed her keys, as well as an extra set of keys to leave downstairs with Ken. She took her purse, her checkbook, and her wallet with two forms of ID, checking three times to make sure she had everything.

Frida left the apartment with one hand on her purse and one on the door. Then she checked again to make sure she had her keys and shut the door.

She got in the elevator and pressed the number for Ellie’s floor.

“Ellie?” she called, knocking on her door.

There was no answer.

Frida used Ellie’s keys to open her door. The blankets she and Barbara and Lucy had used were folded and piled on top of one another by the couch, where she remembered putting them before she left the night before. Frida took a look at herself in the Paris mirror in front of the door. It was only for a second, but that was all she needed to notice how attractive she looked that day.

“Ellie?” Frida whispered as she slowly opened the door to Ellie’s room. The room was dark. The only light coming in was at the sides of Ellie’s blinds. Ellie was lying on her stomach, as she always did when she slept. Her head was facing the opposite direction. She flinched when Frida called her name, but she didn’t turn her head.

“Ellie, it’s past noon. I’m going out to run some errands, and I wanted to see if there was anything you might need,” she whispered.

Ellie didn’t answer her.

“Ellie, is there anything you need?” she whispered again.

“No, that’s okay,” Ellie answered with a slumbering voice.

“I’ll be back to check on you later, okay?”

Ellie grumbled.

Frida locked the door to Ellie’s apartment and took the elevator downstairs.

“Hi, Ken.” She smiled as he opened the door for her.

“Have a good day, Mrs. Freedberg,” he answered lethargically.

“Ken,” she said, stopping before she reached the door. “I just want to thank you for looking out for Mrs. Jerome last night. That was a very kind thing for you to do.”

“Oh, it was all right. I kind of felt responsible for letting that girl up the other day.”

“Well, I want to thank you just as well.” She smiled as she held out her hand.

“I appreciate it.” Ken smiled as he shook her hand, feeling her pass him something in between their connected palms.

“I’ll be back in a little bit,” she said, walking out the door.

Ken watched her leave and then looked into his hand. Frida
had slipped him a folded five-dollar bill and an extra set of keys to her apartment.

“Well,” he said, nodding at the bill, “it’s a start.” He laughed as he placed her keys in the closet and pocketed the money.

The first place she went was to the cell phone store she’d passed on Walnut Street many times before. So many times she’d thought about walking in, but today she actually would.

Two hours later, she had her own cell phone. It was a handsome little thing, black with a flip top. She walked back down Walnut Street, memorizing the phone number they had given her. Frida had signed up for a two-year plan so the phone was free, but she also bargained with them for free insurance in case her phone was lost or stolen. What a terrific deal!

Moments later she found herself in front of a hair salon. She peered in through the window and noticed that some of the chairs were vacant. It was one of those sleek salons where all the kids went. At first she was hesitant about walking in; the place seemed quite intimidating with all the attractive young people milling about. But she took a deep breath and seized the moment.

“Hello,” she greeted the woman behind the counter. “I was wondering if any of your hairdressers might be free today for a shampoo and blow-dry.”

“I think Szechuan is free right now,” the receptionist answered warmly, looking into her book. “Yep, he’s free,” she said, getting up. “Let’s get you into a robe. Fabulous necklaces, by the way,” she added.

“Oh, thank you.” Frida blushed.

Forty-five minutes later, Frida’s hair had been washed and
combed and blown straight. She would think about Szechuan’s suggestion of lightening up her grays, but that would be something to do another day. She would definitely be back. The hair salon was much livelier than her normal salon. She liked the way they treated her. She seemed special in their eyes. Evidently they didn’t get many seventy-five-year-old women, and that made her feel unique. Szechuan had straightened her normal curled updo into a free-flowing bob. She agreed with Szechuan when he told her she looked five years younger.

She strutted down Chestnut Street with a skip in her step, glancing at her reflection in each storefront window. It hadn’t occurred to her at all that day that her heartburn wasn’t acting up, that her arthritis seemed to be gone. The sneakers did hurt a bit, but she figured they’d get more comfortable as she broke them in.