An Untitled Life in Bullets: Part VII - Denneweg and series conclusion.

Part VII: Denneweg

“A man is not his hope, despair, or his past deeds. We know not yet what we have done, still less what we are doing. Wait till evening, and other parts of our day’s work will shine then we had thought at noon, and we shall discover the real purport of our toil” -Henry David Thoreau.

“Lekker” That’s the only word I picked up on. Karen sent me downstairs to the Bakkerij Hessing patisserie below our flat to pick up some pastries for breakfast. Three large chocolate-covered cream puffs with fresh cream filling. The blonde woman was staring at me and speaking Dutch to her friend. After I went upstairs and split one of the decadent parties with coffee, I googled “Lekker.”

"Lekker: 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝, 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐲, b𝐮𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐭."

“Well, now,” I thought. That made my day.

My work was getting busy. All my colleagues had returned to the United States. I was working as the US liaison to Europol for my agency. I often took my work home. Karen and the girls were leaving in a week, and I wanted to make the best of their remaining time. After work, I said, “Let’s go for a walk in the forest.” It was mid-September. It was already starting to get cold. Sunset was getting earlier and earlier every day. We had just returned from a weekend in the Swiss Alps, and a whirlwind five-week tour of Northern Europe was swiftly coming to an end. I found myself feeling sentimental.

We wore light jackets and headed for the Haagse Bos, the forest in the center of Den Haag. “Which entrance shall we take?” I asked. “Let’s go on this trail,” Karen said, pointing to a dirt pathway into the forest. “I’m sad we have to leave in a week,” she said. “In two weeks, I’ll be in nursing school.” She continued. After I left her three years ago, I put her through nursing school. She became an LVN. Now she wanted to become a Registered Nurse and found a school that would offer her a BSN in two and a half years. It would be demanding. “I’ll have about two weeks off at home before I have to start,” she told me. “I’ll continue to work until my clinicals start, but I don’t imagine I’ll have time after that. My boss Maha has been so cool about my trip here. She just returned from Jordan. She understands.”

We passed a group of people exercising in the woods. They wore tight workout clothes. “Oh my god!” Dauphine said. “Look at those people,” she said, laughing. They were all doing some weird exercises that looked like a parody of the movie Zoolander. Dauphine took out her phone. “Stop it,” I told her. “Leave them alone.” “But Dad, this is too funny. I want to share it with my friends.” “Just skip it.” I said, “Don’t be rude.”

“You have to admit that was hilarious,” she said.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t hilarious. I just didn’t want to be rude in making fun.”

We walked a little further down the path until we came to a sign in an opening. “Nazi V-2 rocket launch site.”

“Oh my god,” I said. “This is the site of the V-2 rocket attacks on England in World War II.”

“That’s crazy,” Karen said. “There’s so much history here.”

“I want to go to Amsterdam next weekend, you and me. Without the kids.” Karen said. “Okay, I’ll book a room at the Moxie where I stayed last time.”

“I want to go to a sex shop and red-light district. We need alone a couple of times,” she said. “We need to continue to work on things.”

We continued our walk. We stopped briefly to let Zöe play on a zip line and obstacle course. Then we walked past another of the King’s palaces. At the end of the trail was the US Embassy. “There are Nazi bunkers in Wasenaar.” I said. “That place ironically looks so fairy-like.” We walked through a reclamation of the former German Atlantic wall. A series of anti-tank grachts and bunkers that German General Irwin Rommel had planned to thwart a potential Northern allied invasion. The bunkers were abandoned, and the forest overlooked them. We encountered a magical fairyland of green canals (grachts), woods, flowers, and the ruins of history. Swans now swam in lilypad ponds and green rivers constructed long ago to stop allied tanks and kill them in ambushes.

The park was vast. We ended up at a playground nestled among the trees and next to a dike. Zöe went to play on the playground equipment. Dauphine wandered off alone toward the dike. It was late in the afternoon and cloudy. “I love this place,” I said. Karen and I sat on a bench. We talked for a while about day-to-day things, things I no longer remember—the mechanics of life. “I’m going to sit with Dauphine,” I said, gesturing to my oldest sitting alone on the hill under the trees. As I sat down, I saw the gracht below, green with floating algae. “How are you?” I asked, “I’m okay. I’m sad about going back home. Coming here made me realize how stupid the drama is back home.”

“It’s always good to get a different perspective. High School is rough.”

“I’m thinking about the future,” she said. “I want to join the Air Force.”

“That’s a tough decision, but I think you would enjoy it if that’s what you want to do,” I told her. “I loved my military experience, but we weren’t at war when I served.”

“Your war came later,” she said.

“In many ways, yes.”

“I want to do what you do.

“That’s a good goal,” I said.

“I just fell into this. You have time. You don’t have to figure everything out right now. I didn’t know what I was doing until I graduated college. I spent my youth group partying when I wasn’t starving in school.” I laughed “it was easier back then.” I said.

“I think you should focus on what’s in front of you, like getting your license, graduating, researching to see if the Air Force is the right thing for you. I wish I had joined right after High School. I did it backward.” I said,

“I’m also looking at nursing school,” she said.

I picked up a small piece of bark and tossed it into the water. It made a hole in the floating algae plants before closing around the breech. I found that curiously relaxing. “You’re a pretty girl. I’m worried about sexual assaults in the Air Force.” I said. “I’m a protective Dad.”

“I’m also not sure they will accept you with the nut allergy. So, you should keep your options open.” I told her, “LVN school is a yearlong, and you’ll make decent money at a young age. It’s tough, however. Maybe you should get more work experience before going down that road.”

We talked for a while on that hill overlooking the green algae-covered gracht. Dauphine and I had grown apart the last few years, exacerbated by my infidelity and leaving Karen. Zöe came to live with me while Karen was in LVN school, and I only saw Dauphine a few times per year. Since I moved back from Virginia and then to Europe, Dauphine and I had become closer. She needed a father. I was done being crazy. I was done being a selfish asshole. What I did could never be undone, but I could try and repair some of the damage and live an honorable life.

If Karen and I ended up not working out, we would have put in the effort. We had a lifetime of memories and were making more. Making memories is the key to a happy life together, and we’ve made plenty in the last few years even though we weren’t together. We vacationed with the kids. Karen and Dauphine would fly out to Virginia when I lived there, and I would take them to DC, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Monticello. We were both with different people, but we still had our connection in many ways. Not a sexual connection, we were faithful to our partners. We eventually found ourselves to be single again after experiencing toxic relationships. I mentioned in passing that we should get back together since we have similar world views and get along well when adventuring. We both decided we wanted to be better people. That effort brought them to Europe, and I sat in a forest reconnecting with my oldest daughter. After talking, we got up and shuffled down the hill to find Karen and Zöe. It was twilight, and we were far from home. Karen was in a swing watching Zöe, lost in thought.

𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐇𝐨𝐨𝐝, 𝐓𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐬, August 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟕

I laid my helmet onto the concrete loading dock and rubbed my head, wet with sweat. We had been fighting fires caused by tracer rounds on our .50 caliber machine guns. We were at the Scout gunnery range under the hot Texas sun.

Trey was assigned as my partner during our watch. We had steel water cans with spray nozzles. We would rush to put out grass fires ignited by the Humvee crews moving and firing through the course with mounted Mark nineteen grenade launchers and fifty caliber machine guns.

We were rotating through a sleep schedule or on a fire crew when we weren't driving and shooting. Finally, we got a break and drank some water in the heat.

“I met a girl. I told him. “Allan and I went to Sandy’s, and there she was. We clicked.” I said.

“That’s awesome, man,” he said.

“Yeah, and then we had to go to the fucking field,” I said. “I fucking hate the range.”

“Here we are shooting machine guns and blowing shit up, but the Army always finds a way to take the fun out of things,” Trey said.

“No shit!” I said. I took a drink of hot water from my canteen.

“She’ll probably be gone when I return in two weeks,” I remarked. “I keep thinking about her toe rings for some reason. I find them sexy as fuck.” I said.

“You may be fucked, man,” Trey said. “Is she from Texas?”

“California,” I replied. “She has family here. It’s a long story.”

“She had that valley girl accent.” I laughed.

Trey was from New Jersey, and although he was a few years younger, he had certain wisdom. “I bet she’ll be there when we get back.”

Just then, the radio squawked. “Saber 33, Saber actual, we have a fire. Get out here.”

I miss those days. The problem with moving around Den Haag is that I had to learn a new route to work every time. Denneweg was close to Noordeinde. It wasn’t so bad. I came home one day on my bike down Mauritskade when I saw Karen sitting in our window, people watching. “What are you doing? I asked after opening the door. “I’m watching everybody on the street below. It’s fascinating. Everyone with somewhere to go.” she said. “I saw you in the window when I was riding. You didn’t see me?” “No,” she sat in her kitchen chair, looking out the window.

She had moved one of the low wooden chairs next to a window in the living room. Throughout her stay, she sat and watched life unfold on the street below. “We saw the king today,” Dauphine said. “His carriage rode right past our window.”

“That’s crazy!”

“Do you know where to find the tickets you bought for the Anne Frank House?” Karen asked at dinner. “Remember we are going Thursday.”

“They’re in my email.” I said, “I’ll look tonight when we get back.” We were dining at a nice Italian place in the City Center next to the church. “I’ll pack up all the shopping you and the girls have been doing. I stopped by the Embassy to pick up boxes. I’ll ship them after you leave.” I said, “You were such a butt about that.” Karen said, “How am I supposed to get that to the post office. I don’t have a car.” she mocked. “I know. I’m an ass.” I said. “Let’s walk by the Builtenhoff on the way back. It’s lit up nicely at night.”

“We need some wine also.”

“And whiskey,” I said.

“We can stop by our favorite place on Noordeinde or go to Spar,” I said. Spar was a smaller Dutch grocery chain.

The next day we took the train to Delft for dinner. We ate outside at a nice Belgian place with an extensive beer list. It was cold in September, but they had heaters. I think the calamari was delicious but goes better with warmer weather. I’m thinking of Spain.

I have a friend, Miguel, with whom I worked with. He had just returned from a six-week vacation in his home in Barcelona. He said it was so hot. He was surprised the Netherlands was so cold in September. We walked through Delft and perused a Dutch pottery place. “I think I need some Dutch Royal Pottery,” Karen said. She saw some teacups and saucers in a window of a closed establishment. “Could you come back and pick something out and bring it back with you or ship it?” She asked. “Of course,” I replied. “I’ll spend a Saturday here.”

I couldn’t help feeling a sense of dread as the date of my family’s departure drew near. I didn’t know at the time how much longer I would have to stay in The Hague. I was guessing until December at the earliest. Maybe longer. I was enjoying their company. Every day I came home, I saw Karen sitting in her chair watching life on the street from the upper floor window of our apartment. I think she was feeling melancholic as the date of her departure approached. She had real life waiting for her at home with nursing school.

“Take off today,” Karen said. “Let’s go to the Mauritshuis museum to see some Vermeer and Rembrandt and the Girl with the Pearl Earring.” “I can’t. I’m swamped at work. Take the girls. I’ll go by myself later.” I said.

“It’s okay, I understand. I’ll take them for gelato afterward,” she said.

I regret not going with them to the museum that day. In hindsight, taking a break from work would have been okay. At the end of our lives, our memories aren’t made from the amount of overtime we put in or the amount of time we spend at the office. Experiences make them. We work to facilitate those experiences. I get stuck in the trap of trying to do a good job, but I’m only really making someone else’s promotion off the back of my labor. This part has changed as I near the end of my career in this field. Change is coming soon.

“You’re drinking too much,” Karen said as she lifted her wine glass. “I know we’re in Europe, but it’s a slippery slope.”

“I am, I know. I have to watch myself” I took a sip of whiskey.

“The only thing worse than a teetotaler is a hopeless drunk. I have my moments.” I said.

I read an article about alcohol use and the US medical community influenced by our Puritan background. The recommendation in the US and the UK is a solid two drinks per sitting. Experts in Spain, however, put that recommendation at no more than seven. I like their experts. Scientists are something like 98% non-religious or atheists. Doctors not so much. Although they would seem to be men and women of science, the fact is that the prevalence of doctors in the US tends to be religious despite being highly educated and financially stable professionals.

The religious freedom debate rages on in the US. Religious freedom means a physician’s right not to issue birth control prescriptions if it goes against their faith or on the social front. It is the right to discriminate against anyone who doesn’t fit a particular religious mold. How many Seventh Day Adventists or Latter-Day Saints are making policy decisions at the CDC regarding alcohol recommendations, and how much does their religion come into play? I have no problem with anyone’s belief if I’m not affected by it, or they don’t come knocking at my door on a Saturday morning.

“I’ll cut back,” I told her. “I’m culturally a drinker. I’ll always be one. There’s nothing more boring than a drunk, however. I won’t be that. I’ll cleanse when you leave. I’ll be a cheap drunk. It’ll save money.” I joked. “Addiction is a serious matter. My Dad had to quit.”

“I still like the Spanish recommendation of no more than seven per night. I can aim low. Like Hunter S. Thompson said, the high end of social.” I laughed.

“Just be careful,” she said.

“All the Captains of industry drink. Roosevelt drank, Churchill drank. Hitler and Trump didn’t.”

“Everyone I’ve ever looked up to in history drank,” I said. “Charles Bukowski said it best when he wrote, “I lift my bottle like a coronet and sing songs and fables to wash away the fantastic darkness of my breathing.” I can recite that from memory.” “It’s my opiate.” Every glass of whiskey, each cold beer, and every cocktail I shake is a small piece of a prolonged suicide. I realize this. I don’t want to live forever. I want to live life right now and fade when the time comes. I would only cut back to prolong the party that will end eventually.

The next day we walked in the morning through the Haagse Bos. Karen and the girls parted ways at the end of the trail to go to the Mauritshuis museum. I went on to work. I’m pretty sure they remember their day. I don’t know mine. I don’t even remember with whom I spoke. We exited the train at the busy Amsterdam Centraal station. “We need to charge the Chipkaarts,” I said as I led everybody to the yellow kiosks. We each placed our Chipkaarts in the scanner to get the balance. Zöe’s was €12, Dauphine’s was €12, mine was €12, and Karen’s was €3. I gave a sideways glance at Karen. She grinned. “I can’t help; I don’t get the scanners.” Karen was constantly being charged the maximum rate for her trips.

We walked out of the station onto the busy street just outside, where at any given time, there were hundreds of tourists and bicycles and cars doing their dance in between red lights and green crossing signals. “We need to get away from the tourist area,” I said. “I hate crowds.” We walked down Prins Hendrikkade to Haarelmmerstraat, where there was a nice, you guessed it, Italian restaurant. Someone is a vegetarian. Pizzeria Luca Due is a nice little place and our choice for dinner. We stopped along the shops on the way, and the girls picked up souvenirs. Pizzeria Luca Due has an excellent veggie lasagna, and their pizza is delicious. “May I get you some drinks?” the server asked. “I’ll take a Zätte,” I said. Zätte is a local beer from the Brouwerij‘t ij (pronounced Browery Tee) brewery in Amsterdam. One of my favorites. “I’ll have the same,” Karen said. We walked around Amsterdam all afternoon. We had another beer in the evening at the Café de Prins. “Our tour starts in 30 minutes,” I said. “We should finish our drinks.” We sat outside by the Prinsengracht and had La Chouffes, but it may have been a little cold out for a beer.

At 1845 we walked across the gracht to the museum. We were prepared for a heavy but necessary evening. When I first got to The Hague, I talked with Mike G., Remember him? He’s my department head which made me late on my first day. We were talking about summer vacation. He took his kids to Auschwitz and Birkenau. We talked about the importance of remembering. I told him I previously worked in Human Rights and War Crimes, and my girls cut their teeth in the graphic novel “Maus” by Art Spiegelman about his father’s experience during the Holocaust. The Anne Frank Museum is, therefore, something I felt we had to do. Tickets are sold out months in advance. Even with keys, the lines are long. I’ve been to the Holocaust Museum in DC, an excellent museum that provides a comprehensive history of the Holocaust.

The Anne Frank Museum is housed in her actual hiding place. This is a personal museum. It highlights the story of a girl who, like any other girl, has hopes and dreams and a little boy crazy. She put her thoughts in a journal, highlighting a girl’s life in the Holocaust. Anne’s hidden room in the back of a warehouse is decorated with magazine clippings of celebrities and fashion magazines glued to the wall, much like any girl today. The museum puts things in perspective. It makes you think about who the present and future Anne Franks will be. Perhaps a kid in Myanmar or Syria. Most certainly, there was a similar girl in Srebrenica during the genocide perpetrated by the Serbs, Rwanda during the civil war, Liberia, or The Gambia. There are too many to list. The fact that there are many to detail is an indictment of humanity. Human history has its fill of war and genocide. We choose to live in an illusion of the mundane and day-to-day, but the fact is, this is a violent planet. I ponder an erupting political situation where my daughters would have to hide from death because of who they are. Like many Anne Frank’s before and since demagogues that play upon the hatred and fear of a gullible populace to gain political power can swiftly be a developing danger. Even in the US. Who would ever think possible the attempted ban on an entire people based on their beliefs?

That is the power of the Anne Frank Museum. It sweeps politics, religion, and ethnicity aside. It tells the story of a little girl trying to cope with a dangerous political situation only to perish in the end with nothing, but her story was left behind as a warning for the future.

If you don’t think there is a genocide happening right now, you are still locked into your illusions. North Korea currently has a vast concentration camp system. Three generations are punished. If the son commits a crime against the state, his children and parents are punished.

Generations are born and die inside the North Korean prison camps. Childbirth is only allowed by permission. Any unauthorized baby born inside is killed before the mother or forced abortion. Witnesses describe guards placing long boards on pregnant bellies and jumping on both sides. Prisoners in the camps are intentionally tortured and starved. Accounts of summary executions of prisoners eating grass and rats are common. The prisoners are also enslaved in 75 countries, including in the fishing industry. The descriptions of the prison torture are graphic.

The Syrian government is complicit in genocide also. Aside from chemical attacks on civilians, the government operates the infamous Saydnaya prison, where political prisoners are systematically tortured and starved. Recently thirteen thousand prisoners were secretly hanged after sham trials. The pretense of a trial that witnesses said lasted thirty seconds to a minute before the prisoner was taken away and hung, the body taken to a local hospital where the autopsy read something like “respiratory failure.” These images are not from the Holocaust; they are today. A defector known as “Caesar” smuggled one hundred thousand photos out of Syria. The images of bodies of starved and tortured prisoners were displayed at the United Nations. The Assad regime disavowed the photos claiming they were killed in battle. All tyrants are lying cocksuckers. Those bodies were starved and tortured. Eyes gouged out, flame utilized, teeth and fingernails pulled out. There are so many horrendous accounts by defecting regime officials. Why? Because of a peaceful protest during the Arab spring of a people wanting more from their government

After we left the Anne Frank Museum, everyone was mentally exhausted. We strolled around Amsterdam by lamplight, watching the occasional boat slide beneath a bridge or hear the laughter coming from a dinner barge on the grants. We eventually made our way to Amsterdam Centraal.

The next day was Friday, and I left work early. Karen and I were going back to Amsterdam for a couple’s weekends before she and the girls flew back to California on Monday. I had booked a room at the Moxie on the harbor. I had stayed there before and liked the hotel. Soon we were back at Amsterdam Centraal fighting the crowds of tourists. We took the bus to our hotel and strolled along the harbor. The concierge was Bradley. He was from the Bahamas. “You have the best room in the house.” He chirped. “He must like you,” Karen said later. The room was on the upper floor with a 180-degree view of the harbor. Rusted steel beams framed the floor-to-ceiling windows. The Moxie is a modern hotel catering to a vibrant crowd. “Oh my god, this room is amazing!” Karen exclaimed. “Bradly really liked you!” she laughed.

As Karen was getting ready in the bathroom, I sat in a chair watching the ships come and go through a sunset bleeding across the black water of the Amsterdam harbor. We had popped into a sex shop on our way to the hotel, and the afternoon left us. We slept for a while after. We got into our Uber a few hours later. It was dark. “So, you’re going to the Red-Light District?” our driver asked. “Yes, whichever is the easiest way to walk in would be fine,” I replied. We sat quietly, watching Amsterdam pass by our windows as we drove through the city.

“I want to see a live sex show,” Karen said. “And a peep show. I want to see it all.”

“Let’ s,” I said.

Our driver dropped us off, and we navigated the crowded narrow streets of Amsterdam’s Red-Light District. We either stopped for pizza, or I’m confusing another Red-Light experience. We already had a lot to drink from the hotel—complimentary beverages in the lobby, whiskey, and wine in the room. I was drunk and staggering through the city with the most beautiful woman on my arm. A woman who wanted to do it up. All of us and I was going to make sure we did. We went inside a peep show. There were mostly college kids inside. We put the coin in the slot, the door opened, and a beautiful woman was dancing inside a room, almost burlesque. The time ran out, and Karen and I made out as I fumbled for another coin. “This is boring,” I said.

“Let’s do a live sex show,” Karen said. We waited in line, paid €50 (I think), and walked into a good-sized theater. The bouncer, who looked like a six-and-a-half-foot tall blonde Bryan Ferry in a dark purple suit, took our tickets. “What would you like to drink,” he said. “Whatever is strong.” I said, “Karen had a Cabernet.” We sat on the balcony. The curtains raised, and a man and woman were naked on the stage. She performed fellatio on him. He was rock hard. He had a pained look on his face as if he was thinking, “this is what my life has come to.” The performance seemed robotic. What else would you expect?

We sat through the show and left when the two came on again. “He must be so pumped with Viagra,” I remarked. “Ssh,” Karen hissed as she took a sip of wine. The British woman next to me agreed with me. I took a sip. In the next scene, a dominatrix tortured a thin blond man. She strapped a dildo onto his face and fucked herself with it. Then she beat him with a whip. To my surprise, the man was an audience member. “Holy fuck!” I said. “He’s a random audience member.” When one of his drunk buddies tried to take a photo, the bouncer abruptly escorted him out of the theater. “They don’t fucking play here.” Karen slurred. I don’t remember the rest of the sets. There was a lesbian scene and some burlesque, and more.

All the sex clubs I attended in Washington, DC, may have ruined me on Red Light District entertainment in Amsterdam. My ex-girlfriend and I had friends in Maryland who ran a sex club on weekends from one of their private homes they called the “Treehouse”. He was a homicide detective, and she was a coroner. They met at a crime scene. They blew off steam in the most fun, creative, and sexy way. He built a seven-station glory hole in the basement and always invited tons of men. Women would serve the “pit,” as they called it. At one party, his wife sucked fourteen cocks. There were rooms with torture equipment and people having orgies or whipping each other. We went to mingle, drink, and enjoy the show. The host once joked, pointing at us, “For display only.” They were an incredible couple and down-to-earth. They saw a need, and they filled that need. “I don’t expect the mainstream to understand,” he told me. “This is us.”

My ex-girlfriend and I went to several of their parties. We also went to the posh Balaibalan masquerade ball by the Capitol. This was more of an “Eyes Wide Shut” situation with tuxedos, leather wolf masks, naked women drizzled in whipped cream and fruit, trapeze and fire breathers, sort, or soirée. Don’t get me wrong; a live sex show is excellent. It’s even better when you are immersed in the live sex show. Perhaps I need more stimulus than the live version of Skinemax. Soft porn on stage. A celebration of vanilla. For what it was, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

After the performance set repeated, we left when the anguished-looking gent was getting his dick sucked. We went to the Hell’s Angel’s bar “Excalibur” (the Hell’s Angels own it, stop pretending you don’t) and then to the Black Tiger across the gracht. The ladies in the red rooms showed Karen some attention. Why wouldn’t they? She’s fucking stunning. I was proud to have her on my arm, drawing everybody’s attention everywhere we went. We drank late into the night and found a Wok to Walk stir fry place to eat. “I need to sober up.” I said, “This tastes soo good” I slurred.

The following day, we went around the Jordaan neighborhood. We ate at Haarlem Café and had Zättes and the most fantastic pumpkin nachos. We sat outside, drank Zättes, and ate deliciousness while basking in the sun. Before we sat down, we went to a Dutch Café, and Karen smoked. It had been a while, and she no longer cared for it. She ended up leaving most of it. The cocktail bar Vesper was closed. We ended our Amsterdam experience by eating nachos, drinking beer, and dreading the sunset.

The next day was a hectic scramble to finish packing, getting ready for Karen and the girls to leave for Schiphol. We woke up early: There was the usual yelling and sense of urgency. We made it downstairs and out the door at dawn. We walked through Den Haag to Centraal. We each had two rolling suitcases, which sounded like tanks rolling on the brick road and alleys on our route to Centraal Station. Zöe fell behind and had to wait for a car that wouldn’t wait for her to cross the street. “What an asshole!” Karen said.

“Dick!” I yelled at the driver as he passed us.

We made the train and got off at Schiphol Airport. We checked the luggage and paused before they had to go through security. I hugged Karen, Dauphine, and Zöe. “I’m going to miss you,” I said. “We are going to miss you too,” Karen said. I kissed Karen and hugged her again. They didn’t notice, but I watched them as they made their way through security. I strolled through Schiphol airport, a summer’s worth of memories in my mind. I caught an Intercity train back to Den Haag and watched the Dutch countryside pass with a slight pain inside my chest.

I returned to a cold and empty apartment. I boiled some water and selected some herbal tea. I opened the window. I took the cup and sat on the sofa while the tea was steeping. Her lonely chair sat empty by the window. The curtains rustled softly in the breeze.

The end.