We had all been staying at the Heidel House in Green Lake, Wisconsin, where my first wife and I were married in October 1995.
Lily and her New England born and raised husband had flown in for the weekend as our guests.
It was obvious from the start that Lily’s husband was uncomfortable being around me and my family as I sensed he knew that his wife and I were deeply in love.
My father, whose longtime struggle with Parkinson’s disease had taken a sudden turn for the worse, left us deciding to cut the weekend short and return to Chicago.
While everyone was packing, Lily passed my room and looked in with tears in her eyes and walked away.
I followed her into the day room where she was sitting by the window looking out at the lake.
As I approached, she turned to me as she sat behind a thin translucent satiny curtain. I leaned over and kissed her on the lips through the curtain, turned and walked away.
Lily stood up and followed me back upstairs and just as I had entered my room and was about to close the door behind me, Lily pushed it open, made her way into the room and closed the door.
She ran into my arms, throwing me onto the bed and we lost ourselves in a kiss which not only took my breath away, but nearly made me choke on the piece of gum that I had been chewing.
It was the most amazing kiss I had ever experienced. Lily’s full lips were softer than I had imagined, tasting both sweet and salty from what I imagined were tears that had dried upon them minutes before.
Suddenly, Lily heard her husband’s voice calling from the corridor and she quickly ran out of the room.
A few weeks later I ran into Lily at the synagogue where we had both been taking challah making classes.
At the end of the class, Lily announced that she would not be returning and that she was moving to The Hague.
I looked at her with eyes that asked if I could see her out, to which she shook her head and lowered her eyes. I wouldn’t even be able to say goodbye, I thought to myself.
As she stood, all the young women who had been her baking companions all these weeks gathered around her, hugging her and wishing her well as I stood at the table paralyzed with silent grief.
As she was walking out of the recreation room where the baking classes were held, I ran towards the door and told one of the young women in the class to please tell the rabbi’s wife that I had left and was sorry for walking out in the middle of the class.
I ran out and found myself outside my parent’s old apartment on Washtenaw and saw Lily at the bottom of the street turning right onto Devon Avenue.
I ran as fast as I could and crossed the street where I saw Lily who, to my surprise, had just discarded a cigarette as she discharged a mouthful of smoke into the air.
She stopped at a pay telephone on the corner of Devon and Fairfield, picked up the handset and inserted a coin into the phone box.
Just as I was about to call out to her, a small group of Asian women, relatives I imagined, circled Lily and began talking to her.
Not wanting to interrupt, I decided to go directly to the airport and confront Lily there before she boarded her flight back to the Netherlands and try to convince her stay and begin a new life with me in Chicago.
I then found myself crossing Peterson Avenue at Maplewood near where I lived with my grandparents until the age of six.
As I was crossing the street, an older woman in a 70s-era Cadillac ran through the crosswalk and stared me down, to which I responded with a few choice words. Crossing the street I began walking northbound down Maplewood when I heard the sound of screeching tires and saw the woman in the Cadillac fast approaching. I ducked down the alley and ran into the first gangway I could find and made it up to the first floor landing of the three-flat’s back porch.
A few minutes later, I heard the woman talking to a neighbor asking if she had seen someone who matched my description.
After what felt like an eternity, I heard the woman get back into her car and drive away.
Then I woke up.
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