Page 136 of How to Walk Away

“So much for a stealth attack.”

“The upside is,” Kit went on, “it makes it easier to find out where he lives.”

“How so?”

“When we get to Scotland,” Kit said, shrugging, “we’ll just message him for his address.”

I nodded at her. “It’s almost too simple.”

Kit patted me on the head. “Almost.”

***

EVEN BEYOND THEwhite terror of flying, I was nervous about the travel in general. At home, I’d developed routines and ways of doing things that had lifted my confidence. In Europe, I had no idea what to expect. We had researched everything online, of course, and I had a folder of printouts in my carry-on bag. You can call ahead for a ramp to help you board the train from Brussels to Bruges, for example, but you can’t just show up and demand one. I’d also made sure to find a hotel with rooms on the ground floor I could get to. Kit had wanted us to take a boat tour around the canals, but we learned in advance that none of the boats in town could accommodate wheelchairs.

We were as prepared as we could be, but nothing could have prepared us for the actual experience of being in Bruges. It was like a fairy-tale city. None of the normal twenty-first-century clutter, like neon signs or billboards. Just medieval stone and brick buildings with turrets and gables, a town square with a Gothic church, and chocolate shops, and cobblestone streets. And the canals! Every few blocks, stone bridges arched over the quiet water below.

Not to mention all the swans.

All my prep was worth it. There were tricky moments of travel—like when we boarded the train and found it packed with people, shoulder to shoulder—so full, folks had to move to the next car to make room for us, and Kitty sat on my lap in the chair to make space. But, in general, it wasn’t as hard as I’d feared. I’d expected roadblock after roadblock, and humiliation after humiliation, as I tried to navigate a world set upfor able-bodied, French-and-or-Flemish-speaking foreigners. But we got along with surprising ease.

We reached the hotel in the late morning, and our jet-lag guide said we only had to stay awake until 10:00P.M., so we ordered room service—steak frites—and watched European TV. Before it got too late, Kit and my mom popped out to raid the chocolate shops, and came back with a full shopping bag of dark, milk, white, peppermint, and salted caramel chocolates in every shape under the sun, from hearts to starfish, and filled with creams and nougats, fruit purees, coffee, almonds, macadamias, and peanut butter.

Kit dumped it all out on her bed in a pile.

“You’ve lost your marbles,” I said to them both. “We can’t eat all that.”

“Sure we can,” Kit said.

“We’ll get sick,” I insisted.

“Not me,” Kit said. “I’ve spent years building up a tolerance.”

In the end, we ate it all. The more we ate, the more it felt like a challenge we had to win. We really did make ourselves sick. It was impressive debauchery. Afterward, my mom and I had to lie green-gilled on the bed, and Kit threw up in the bathroom.

“I think I’m just dehydrated,” she said, climbing into her rollaway bed by the window.

But in the morning, Kit was sick again.

“Maybe I picked up dysentery in the airport,” she said. The nausea got better by midday. By evening, Kit was exhausted—but luckily nothing worse.

When it was time to get dressed, Kit lay on her rollaway like a corpse.

“You’re fine now,” I tried to insist, as she adjusted the cool rag over her eyes. “You haven’t barfed in four hours. You and Mom need to get going.”

But Kit, her voice froggy, didn’t open her eyes. “I don’t think I’m going.”

“Um,” I said. “You have to go! This was your crazy idea!”

“I do not feel good at all,” Kit said.

My mom clutched her purse. “Maybe we should just skip it,” she suggested.

“You’re not skipping,” Kit said.

“Well, I’m not going by myself,” my mom said.

“Mags can go with you.”

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