I hadn’t picked up Tin Ujević—the famous Croatian poet—in years. But the week before I left for Paris, I pulled weeds from the stone chapel in my grandmother’s village—his village too—and found myself flipping through his Collected Works. The page that opened? Paris. Montparnasse. The same streets I’d soon walk, unknowingly at first, with him in my pocket.
Ujević, writing of Montparnasse in the 1910s, described the artists and expatriates, half-starved and chasing beauty, the faded women and the men who watched them, the dream of glory traded for studio rent and a single bitter coffee. He chronicled the area’s economic collapse after the Treaty of Versailles, and then—strangely—the rebirth that followed, fueled by “Yankees” who arrived hoping to escape the mechanised rigidity of their lives back home.
They wanted Paris, but so did I.
*****
My husband died four years earlier. We’d been together for four decades—I was just nineteen when we married. The love was real. We travelled together, read poetry together, made each other laugh. He used to recite Yesenin or Neruda while making coffee, pausing mid-line to ask if I wanted honey or milk.
After he passed, I spent years in the hushed limbo of a “new normal.” I reinvented myself day by day—not as a widow, but as a woman learning to carry memory inside a changed life. The metaphor of the rug being pulled out from under me wasn’t just emotional—it landed in my chest, in my knees. For years, I imagined that we’d stroll hand in hand through Paris again. That dream was gone.
Widowhood had always been a word for my grandmother in her eighties. Not for me. I began again—through writing, through creative nonfiction. I told myself I wouldn’t chase anything new. But I also made a quiet promise: if God placed someone in my path, I wouldn’t turn away. I would honour it. I would see where it led.
A few months after his death, a younger writer friend, Justine, encouraged me to apply to the Hedgebrook Writers Residency for women. I was accepted, though the trip was postponed for over two years due to COVID.
When I finally arrived, I stayed in a small cottage tucked into the woods. At night, owls called from the branches overhead. In the mornings, I sometimes found their feathers on the moss-covered path—small, soft, like secret notes. Inside, I discovered journal entries left by women who had written in the cottage before me—handwritten notes from Carmen Maria Machado, Ruth Ozeki, and Ursula LeGuin. A lineage of voices, like quiet echoes in the walls.
There, I read and wrote. I grieved. I listened inward. And I felt accompanied—not only by the trees and owls, but by the other women whose spirits lingered in ink. I came face to face with words from Lisa Ko, Rachel Heng, Sarah Balakrishnan—writers who shared the land and the silence with me, each in her own cottage. We came together at twilight dinners and exchanged words by firelight. All of us, in our own ways, had come to begin again.
After Hedgebrook, I stayed another month nearby, renting the bottom floor of a home owned by Justine’s friends. They had two young daughters who left crayon drawings taped to the fridge and a trick-or-treat bag hanging by the door. The rhythm of the days was gentle. Unrushed.
On my last day, I stopped at a bakery—long wooden tables, rustic breads, croissants, and a chocolate loaf they called “babushka.”
A man, coffee cup in hand, scanned the room and nodded toward the empty seat across from me. He was tall, with sharp cheekbones and a nose with personality. There was something unfinished in his elegance—thoughtful, slightly unmoored. His name was David. He worked in aerospace systems, had children from different marriages, and drove a sleek electric car. His voice had a soft lilt I couldn’t quite place. My hands were wrapped around my mug like it might offer more answers than he could.
We talked for over an hour.
Later, I told my host family. They teased me: “That wasn’t coffee. That was a date.”
I wasn’t sure what it was. But I gave him my number.
*****
We messaged after I returned home. Then he came south to visit relatives near San Francisco. We met for lunch. He asked if I could drive.
And so I drove us down the coast to a friend’s ranch. A poet with horses. I brought her soup and cookies. He came along, uncertain but game. She offered us tea. I didn’t explain who he was. I wasn’t sure myself.
After that, we FaceTimed weekly. Our conversations settled into a rhythm—books, work, memory. I told him about Dante’s descent, about Martha Beck and The Way of Integrity, about letting go of what no longer fits. He listened. Asked thoughtful questions. I thought maybe this is how something starts now—not with fire, but with a flicker. Not with declarations, but with attention.
Then one afternoon, his tone shifted. A pause. A seriousness that didn’t match the conversation.
“There’s something I should tell you,” he said.
And instantly, my mind began cataloguing possibilities: maybe the second divorce never finalised. Maybe he wasn’t divorced at all. Maybe this was the moment the spell broke, and I realised I’d been naïve—or worse, duped. His silences had always felt just a little too practised, too well-placed.
He looked into the camera.
“I have genital herpes.”
I blinked. Not the twist I expected. And yet, somehow, all the same questions still applied: his timing, his intimacy, the strategy behind the telling.
It didn’t feel like a confession. It felt like a formality—a disclosure made not to open something up, but to get it out of the way.
I didn’t flinch. But I didn’t lean in, either.
I understood the courtesy. But it didn’t feel like care. There was no invitation in it, no warmth—only distance, cool and clinical.
“Do you know what that is?” he asked.
Yes, I knew. I have a biology degree, a dead husband, and a long memory of being careful. I also have a body—a lived one, imperfect and not especially interested in being anyone’s reward for disclosure.
Later, I called Justine, my writer friend.
“You realise what that means, right?” she said, then snickered.
“What?”
“He wants to sleep with you.”
By then, I was planning a trip to Croatia. He mentioned he’d be in France—first in the south, then in Paris, where his relatives were hosting a birthday.
“You should meet us there,” he said.
And oddly, I considered it.
Not because I had made peace with what he told me—but because the idea of Paris, of going from Zagreb to meet someone not quite a stranger, felt like a kind of test. A soft return. A rehearsal for risk.
I’d been a widow for several years. I hadn’t been in a relationship since my husband died. Part of me was afraid I’d forgotten how. This man was the first one I’d let get close—not close-close, but close enough to stir something.
I wasn’t looking for fireworks. I was looking for kindness. Care. A steady presence. The possibility that something new might take root in the soil of everything I had already lost.
This wasn’t a decision. It was a threshold. And maybe I just wanted to see what it felt like to stand on the edge of it.
*****
It was March, and the day before I left Zagreb, a sudden snow fell—soft, almost apologetic, as if winter had returned just to say goodbye. The rooftops turned to parchment. Even the trams moved slower, their metal arms clicking overhead like they were remembering something.
I zipped my coat up to my throat and walked through the old centre, past shuttered bookstores and a man hunched over a tiny coffee kiosk, steam curling from the paper cup in his hands. I was looking for a gift—something small but real. Not tourist junk. Not perfume in a box. Something with roots. With history.
That’s when I saw it: a narrow boutique tucked between an apothecary and a tobacconist. Croata. The windows gleamed like polished stone. Inside, the air smelled faintly of cedar and starch. The ties and scarves hung like small banners of history, each one hand-painted and linked to a story—an artist, a poem, a piece of the past.
I drifted between displays until I saw it: a deep red cravat with a subtle geometric pattern. It looked ancient and modern at once—measured, elegant, self-possessed. I ran my fingers along the silk. It held a quiet strength. Like it had waited for me.
The cravat, after all, was ours. Croatian soldiers once tied silk cloths around their necks to bind wounds in battle—practical, lifesaving, close to the skin. But as they rode, the fabric streamed behind them like a brilliant silk tail, catching the wind across muddy fields and bloodied hillsides. The French mistook it for elegance. “Croata!” they shouted—naming the soldiers, and soon the cloth itself. Louis XIV made it fashionable. The name stuck.
It felt right—a gesture both personal and symbolic. A thread between old wounds and new selves. The one I chose was deep red, marked by the troplet—the traditional Croatian three-ribbon interlace, subtle and steady as thread. A gesture. Personal, historical, a little absurd.
The clerk folded it reverently into a box, which I slipped into my bag.
I wasn’t sure if I was offering it to him, or to myself. But I knew I didn’t want to arrive in Paris empty-handed. I was going forward—but I was bringing Zagreb with me.
*****
I’d been to Paris once before, with my husband. That trip was filled with books, churches, poetry, cafés, and museums. We traced the footsteps of writers we loved—Baudelaire, Beckett, Ujević. At Deux Magots Café, we held hands in quiet homage to the bohemian Croatian poets who had wandered Saint-Germain-des-Prés decades earlier. It felt like a city made for reflection. This time would be different. A kind of test. A re-entry.
I arrived ahead of David and his small entourage—his sister, two brothers, and their spouses. Wandering the neighbourhood alone, I stumbled toward what I thought was a park: a handsome reddish-brown brick wall, open iron gates, ivy spilling over the edges. But inside, it was Montparnasse Cemetery. Sartre, de Beauvoir, Duras, Sontag. The laminated map hung like a temporary scripture. I was following ghosts.
I stood there a while, unsure what I was looking for. Then I turned and walked straight into the hotel lobby—still holding the quiet of stone and moss in my chest—only to find David already there, flanked by his sister and two of the in-laws. Their polished suitcases stood upright beside them like obedient dogs.
I stumbled slightly, brushing windswept hair from my collar. “I just walked through the cemetery,” I said, a little breathlessly.
They smiled, vaguely. Polite, but appraising. It wasn’t clear if they found the comment strange—or me.
Then, leaning in like we were alone, he asked:
“Would it be okay if I shared your room?”
“You don’t have one?”
“No, I do. With my sister.”
“You don’t have two beds?”
“We do.”
I looked at him. “Then you have a room. Why do you need mine?”
He hesitated. “I want to get to know you better.”
A moment passed that felt like eternity. The old me would have unravelled—second-guessing myself, shrinking inward, trying to figure out what I had done wrong or failed to signal. But this time, I felt the shift. I was seeing him clearly.
The disappointment was there, yes—but it wasn’t mine to hold. The tug-of-war wasn’t with him. It was with me. Between the version of myself who waited to be chosen—and the one who no longer needed to be.
And the strange thing was, before that moment, I’d considered it. We were in the City of Love, weren’t we? I’d wondered—maybe this could be the time I let go. Even with the STD disclosure, precautions existed. I’d played the documentary in my mind: risk, longing, guilt, release.
But this? In front of his family, moments after they’d met me? It didn’t feel brave. It felt cheap. This wasn’t intimacy. It was a power move. Clumsy. Transactional. The tenderness I’d let myself imagine—gone. For a flash, it felt like a stinger to the face—hot, sharp, shameful. I was suddenly exposed, cornered, like I’d missed a cue in a performance I didn’t know I was in.
He wasn’t joking. He meant it.
And somehow, my discomfort wasn’t even part of the equation. But I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t heartbroken. I was choosing clarity.
*****
We walked through the city, though it never felt like we walked together. It was more like I moved beside him—parallel, but apart. I was wide-eyed, like a child in a candy shop window—everything gleamed.
The Shakespeare and Company bookstore was cramped and beautiful, still whispering with the breath of every writer who ever passed through. We looked at Notre-Dame across the Seine, veiled in scaffolding and cranes like metal birds. I paused at every open church and lit candles—for a friend back in New York facing mouth cancer surgery. Wax, incense, and silence wrapped around me like warmth.
In those still, flickering moments, something settled: not peace, exactly, but clarity. A kind of knowing I didn’t need to explain— he kind that rises from the body before the mind catches up.
We crossed a long boulevard near Saint-Germain. A young woman walked ahead of us, her designer backpack gaping open, a wallet visible. I pointed it out. He shrugged.
“It’s not our problem,” he said.
I tapped her shoulder anyway.
Then we wandered into Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the oldest church in Paris. I didn’t say I’d been here before—with my husband, years ago. We had stepped inside quietly, reverently, as if entering a poem. Now, beside David, I said nothing. He’d never been here. Despite growing up in this city, it held no meaning for him.
For me, it was memory and hush—cool stone, flickering votives, the echo of a laugh that no longer had a voice. For him, it was just another stop.
A concert poster hung near the entry. Vivaldi. Evening performance.
“Should we go?” I asked.
He shrugged again. We found the ticket office—dim, wood-panelled, like a storage closet.
“Cash only,” the man said.
“I only have cards,” he said.
I pulled out a hundred euro note. I wanted music in that space. It mattered. So I paid.
Later, over coffee, he said, “Sounds like in your family, there are no divorces. You marry for life.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
He was drawing a contrast, maybe without realising it. In his world, love was provisional. In mine, it was meant to hold.
*****
The next day, we stopped at a department store—Dior counter. His sister was buying perfume for her teenage daughter. She wanted the glass bottle engraved.
We waited on velvet chairs while the clerk disappeared. David sat across from me, scrolling.
“All set,” he said. “First-class seat back to California.”
He didn’t look up. Just delivered it like a headline—meant to land.
I took a quiet breath and couldn’t believe it. Not at the ticket—but at the arrogance. As if wealth were a prize, and I should regret not claiming it. Did he think that would impress me? That I’d swoon for his boarding group? I wasn’t angry—just stunned by the emptiness of the gesture. What I wanted couldn’t be bought. Not with legroom. Not with champagne.
That evening, in their room, I handed him the cravat. His sister was getting ready for the jacuzzi—or maybe a shower—moving around in slippers, gathering her things. She glanced at me and said, “Make yourself at home.”
I slid the Croata box from my bag, trying to keep my hand steady. A quiet gesture. Maybe it was grace. Maybe just habit—offering something, even when the moment had already closed.
He thanked me. Folded it. Slid it into his suitcase between socks and chargers.
It didn’t feel wrong. But it didn’t feel right either. Just… done.
*****
After they left, I stayed. I returned to Deux Magots, where I’d once sat with my husband, years earlier. He was a chess player, yes—but also a man who read poetry the way others read instructions for living. A.G. Matoš, Tin Ujević—he’d introduced me to them both. This café, not the Louvre, had been our Paris highlight. We came here on purpose, drawn by the ghosts of writers we admired, content to sit quietly in the shadow of their words.
My husband once told me a story about Tin—one of his favourites.
Tin had walked into a village tavern wearing tattered clothes, and the bartender refused to serve him. The next day, Tin returned dressed immaculately. He ordered a drink, and when it arrived, he poured it straight into the pocket of his fine coat.
“Why would you do that?” the bartender asked.
“You’re feeding my coat, not me,” Tin replied.
My husband loved that story. So did I. Tin wasn’t just a poet—he was a mirror, a provoker, always pointing to the gap between appearance and essence.
Now I came back alone. Not to relive the past, but because longing swept over me like weather. I wanted to sit again in the place where our joy had once been ordinary. I wanted to remember. I sat alone. The table was the same. The light had shifted.
Later, I wandered. At the Pompidou gift shop, I picked up postcards—bold colours, soft brushwork. Two young women stood beside me at the register, speaking in a language I recognised. Slavic, but softened. Croatian? Bosnian? I turned and asked, gently.
They smiled. “Bosnian Croats,” one said. “But raised in Munich.”
War refugees. Now volunteers, working with a Catholic mission in Munich and visiting Paris for a few days. They had just come from Sacré-Cœur, where a priest had blessed a small bag of Mary medals—meant for their parishioners back home. It’s a custom, they said, to pass them on, especially to those in need.
“Here—take some,” one of them said, and without hesitation, she poured a handful into my palm.
I mailed one to my friend in New York. She’s Jewish. I didn’t care. I wanted her safe. I wanted her alive.
Then I climbed the steep steps to Sacré-Cœur. Paris spilt out before me—grey, gold, open. I stood alone at the top, the wind tugging at my scarf.
Inside the cathedral, I prayed with clasped hands in front of golden candlelight. I made a small offering with my credit card. I bought a Sacred Heart sachet—stitched in red velvet, trimmed in pearls.
I walked down the far side of the hill, into streets I didn’t recognise, past cafés and bakeries that didn’t appear in any guidebook. And something in my chest shifted—quietly, without announcement. It wasn’t love. But it was something full. Steady. And for the first time, Paris felt entirely mine.
My husband wasn’t far. Not in form, but in feeling. A shadow in the rhythm of my steps. A warmth in the way I paused to look up at the sky.
And the poet—Tin—wasn’t just a ghost on the page anymore. He was a mirror. He’d wandered this city, too—full of longing, contradiction, ache. He knew what it meant to lose illusions and still love the world.
Now, he walked beside me. Not speaking. Just keeping pace. As if to say: You made it. You stayed. Not for the man. For the meaning.
For the wind, the candlelight, the voices in the stones.
