Brian: Okay.
Madison replied with a thumbs-up, then, a minute later:
Madison: I’ll bring salad.
Kevin wrote:
Kevin: I’ll bring dessert. And a check.
Helen laughed out loud at that one, startling the woman in the next room enough that she knocked lightly on the wall. Helen covered her mouth, still smiling.Women’s empowerment coaching
The rest of the trip passed gently.
She visited the Vatican Museums and cried quietly inside the Sistine Chapel, not because she was sad, but because beauty sometimes finds bruises people have forgotten they carry. She took a train to Florence for one day and bought a leather journal from a shop owner who stamped her initials inside. She ate pasta with clams by a window during a thunderstorm. She got lost twice and found streets better than the ones she had intended to take.
On her final night, she ate dinner alone at a small restaurant near the river. The waiter asked if she was waiting for someone.
Helen smiled and said, “No. Just me.”
He gave her the table by the window.
read more in next page
