THE KINDNESS OF our London friends in the first few week supported us and kept us from being overwhelmed.  Michael put me in touch with a former colleague who had a daughter a year older than Charlotte and suggested that we get together for a play date.  So on Wednesday, after leaving the hospital we set out for Hyde Park, a corner of which had been given over to an outdoor fair, called the Winter Wonderland and offered all kinds of food and rides for children.  After a few minutes of searching around, we met up with Carol and her daughter Willa.  Normally shy, Charlotte relaxed pretty quickly with Willa, who was a bright and funny girl, while Carol and I walked several paces behind.  Carol had been Michael’s boss for a while in London and then “retired” from the world of finance and was involved in fine arts, her husband being an art critic and poet.  I filled her in on what was going on with us – although she already knew about Mary Elizabeth from Michael. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk to an adult about something other than our present situation, and Carol was chatty and full of stories and anecdotes, so conversation came very easily.

The girls enjoyed themselves on rides, while we looked at the craft booths and everything the fair had to offer.  Not terribly different from fairs in New York, this one however had a decidedly German feel to it, with some of the food concessions and craft booths having a “black forest” kitschy feel. For example, I don’t think at an American carnival, there would be an entire booth given over to cuckoo clocks.  Nevertheless, it was cold enough to enjoy hot chocolate, but not enough to make it unpleasant to walk around.

While it was a nice relief from the hospital routine, I definitely felt a sense of misalignment.  Maybe it was a combination of guilt for not being at the hospital, although the visiting hours in the intensive treatment ward were limited and we had been there most of the day, and a gnawing feeling of worry that something would happen while we were gone.  But I had my phone with me, and I was reasonably confident that the hospital staff could handle dialing a US mobile number (I by contrast struggled for the first few weeks figuring out how to dial London numbers from my U.S. Mobile).  I think I also just missed Mary Elizabeth since this would be the kind of event she would enjoy, and I knew that she would enjoy Carol’s company – since women in finance were few and far between and they would have a lot in common.  Plus Mary Elizabeth was chatty and animated – as was Carol – and I could stay more in my comfort zone of spectator to the conversation – not an active participant.  I felt incomplete and out of sorts with her gone, and that’s probably what I felt most keenly.

We left the fair after a couple of hours and hopped in a cab to St. John’s Wood, where Willa was performing in a holiday concert at the American School, where she was a student. We dropped Willa off at the school which from what I could see was a large, modern building which felt quite American (I guess that was the point), and then headed off for a quick dinner at a nearby restaurant. It was dark, but I could see that St. John’s Wood was a lovely neighborhood with large fancy private houses facing the tree-lined streets.  We found a nice Greek restaurant on the high street and had a meal of appetizers.  As the parents of pre-teens, we fell easily into a conversation about high school and ultimately college, and I was so interested to hear about Carol’s plan for Willa.  While she was open to many possibilities, Carol chose the American school in London because it was more compatible with the American university system and offered credits and curricula which would make more sense to a U.S. School.  Carol and her husband owned a house on the beach in East Hampton so the plan was to move back the states when Willa and her brother were in college.  Again I missed Mary Elizabeth, who would have loved this conversation since she was fairly obsessed with the topic. It came time to leave and we walked the few blocks back to the school, while nearly being mowed down by cabs at several intersections. Some things are the same from city to city, but I would have to remember to look over my right shoulder when crossing the street to avoid winding up in the hospital myself.

The concert took place in a very fancy auditorium and like the concerts in our school at home consisted of the string orchestra, a band and a chorus.  Willa played the saxophone in the band and sang in the chorus.  It was a holiday concert, and they went out of their way to present an equitable mix of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza songs.  For some reason, Carol and Charlotte wound up sitting together and I sat alone in the packed house.  I worried that Charlotte would be uncomfortable being separated, but it didn’t seem to bother her as much as it bothered me.  The concert was a fun diversion from our current situation however and reminded me of home.

After the concert was over, we walked to the nearby St. John’s Wood tube station, which was on the Jubilee line and took us directly back to Canary Wharf without changing trains, which made it easy to see why it was an attractive place for the affluent finance types from Canary Wharf to live – despite its distance from the docklands.  Charlotte seemed to be bearing up extraordinarily well given what was going on, but I did notice subtle changes.  She had never been an overly cuddly baby or child, preferring to be on her own, looking out at the world.  But I noticed on the ride back to Canary Wharf that she needed to maintain some kind of physical contact with me – whether holding hands or leaning her head on my arm while we sat next to each other – and I suspected this helped ease her feelings of anxiety or fear.  It certainly helped me too.

Go to next chapter: Get Better Mary Elizabeth