After 30 Years Of Marriage, My Husband Moved Overseas

Joggers stream past me. I’m seated on a park bench by myself with an ocean of tears dammed up inside.

A couple who liked to walk the Minuteman Bikeway installed this bench so fellow pedestrians could rest and take in nature. Bikers zip by, one hooked up to a bike trailer containing a toddler. A young man on a Segway sails past.

I turn away from this evidence of civilization. Green leaves flutter in the breeze. I marvel at their simplicity. Being a leaf would be easier than a woman separated from her 85-year-old husband by the Atlantic Ocean.

Sven is in Luleå, Sweden, with a fractured femur. I returned to Boston to promote my new book and three weeks into this forced separation of ours, he went for a walk by himself and fell.

We met in France. I spotted Sven in the teachers’ parking lot at the Lycée International in St. Germain-en-Laye, my daughters’ school. He was hard to miss, holding a bouquet of pink roses high above his head as he zigzagged between cars.

I wondered who would be lucky enough to receive such a fine bouquet from such an attractive man. I never found out, but we happened to meet later that week at a cocktail party hosted by the German Section. I stood with an American Section teacher as Sven approached.

It’s strange how certain moments become engraved in memory. I know exactly what I was wearing: a black pencil skirt and a silk cobalt blue blouse. The reception hall smelled of bratwurst canapés, distributed by German parents, the women dressed in dirndls.

“You must know Sven,” the American Section teacher said.

“I don’t,” I replied with a smile. “But I’m counting on you for an introduction.”

Men don’t usually talk about their children. Sven did. He had two teenage sons in Luleå, near the Arctic Circle, and two older sons off on a trip around the world. During our brief conversation, we established that we both enjoyed nature walks. I let an adequate amount of time pass and sent an invitation to explore a local park. We’ve been walking together ever since.

During a walk last August, Sven made a strange declaration: “I intend to live four more years.”

Perhaps he had managed to tune in to some frequency that eludes the rest of us and received this esoteric message? I was picking wildflowers north of Strömstad, the seaside town where he built a summer house in 1980.

Now, seated beside the Bikeway in…