Paris Reunion
PARIS REUNION – March 20, 2025 – Paris, France
The flight from Atlanta, Georgia to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport landed ahead of schedule. Elaine and Michael LeSueur staggered off the plane, through customs, and out to a line of taxis. They reached their tiny hotel room around 8 pm before walking a block to a perfectly French-looking sit-down restaurant for dinner.
“I can’t believe we’re actually in Paris!” Elaine squealed to her husband. “Everything’s just the way I pictured it.”
Elaine attempted to speak French to their waiter. He answered her in English. When their food arrived, Elaine wondered aloud about the ingredients and why the chicken in France tasted so much better than in America.
Michael yawned and propped up his head in his hands. “I wish you would have let me nap on the plane.”
“I don’t want you staying up late. When we get back to the hotel, we need to get right to sleep so we can adapt to Paris time. Starting tomorrow morning, we won’t have any time to waste.”
Elaine’s fascination with France began in her high school French classes. She always intended to visit but never found an opportunity. Work and family obligations always got in the way. When her youngest child finally moved out of the house, her husband agreed they should put France on their calendar. Elaine sharpened her rusty French using Duolingo and read dozens of travel guides. Michael left the trip planning to his wife, who was determined to see as much of the country as possible in a week.
Since it would be her first time in Europe, Elaine investigated joining an organized tour that arranged transportation and hotels and set a travel schedule. After all her background reading, she decided she could handle logistics herself and pack in more sites.
As Elaine and Michael waited for dessert in the Paris restaurant, she reviewed her itinerary for the next day. She had been over the plan so many times, it felt like listening to a familiar song.
“Tomorrow’s probably our most important day,” she said to Michael. “It’s really our main time in Paris. Then were off to Versailles and catching trains across the country. Tomorrow we need to absorb all of Paris we can.”
“And when do we see Janice?”
Elaine frowned in the tiniest way. “We haven’t figured that out yet. I’m still not sure where they’ll be.”
After Elaine booked their flight to France months in advance, she kept the trip a secret so she could reveal it to friends and family on her birthday. Unknown to her, and in what turned out to be the biggest coincidence of her life, her newly-married daughter, Janice, was invited on a trip with her husband and in-laws. A trip to France. At the very same time Elaine and Michael planned to be there.
While they would be in France at the same time as Elaine and Michael, Janice and her in-laws would be attached to a tour group and guide. They would be led from place to place, and while they had a general idea where they would be on a given day, the specifics were left up to the tour company.
When Elaine and her daughter realized they would be in Paris on the same day, of course they wanted to meet up. A mother and daughter reunion in Paris sounded like a fairy tale. While Elaine hoped for a specific time and place that she could work into her schedule, Janice was content with figuring things out on the fly and texting her mother with details after speaking to her tour guide.
Elaine and Michael finished dinner and walked arm in arm down the narrow street to their hotel. Despite the time difference, Elaine had no trouble waking up early the next morning. She pushed Michael out of bed and then downstairs for a quick breakfast wearing shoes build for lots of walking.
“Okay, the top five things we need to see today are Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph, and the Sacre Coeur Church. I’ve got morning tickets for the Notre Dame tour, so we’ll start there.”
“And when do we meet Janice?”
“I’m still not sure. We’ll have to be flexible.” Elaine looked skeptically at her packed schedule, unsure where she would find any flexibility.
They walked to the nearest Paris Metro station and Elaine knew exactly how to buy tickets and which train they needed. Once they were underground, the subway system felt like any other in a large city. After fourteen stops, they walked out of the chilly concrete tunnels and into the warm morning sunlight. They followed a cobblestone street between gray buildings, which all had a distinct Paris appearance – six stories tall, wrought-iron balconies on the second and fifth floors, and dark slate roofs.
“Feels like we’re walking through history, doesn’t it?” Elaine said to Michael.
“I don’t know. Kind of feels like we’re in Harry Potter World in Florida.”
The tall towers of Notre Dame Cathedral dominated the skyline. The couple reached a street filled with people waiting without reservations to see the cathedral’s newly refurbished interior. As they were about walk to the much shorter line for people with reservations, Elaine’s phone buzzed with a text from Janice.
“Now I know our schedule. We’re on a bus headed to the Eiffel Tower. Can you meet us there and we’ll ride up together?”
Elaine looked regretfully at the doors of Notre Dame. “I guess we’ll have to miss it. But it’ll be worth it to see our daughter on the Eiffel Tower, right?”
Michael shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sure.”
After texting Janice to let her know they were on their way, they zigzagged through the crowd and back to the subway station. The second encounter with the subway did not go as smoothly as the first. Most of the ticket dispensers were glitching and Elaine waited impatiently at the one machine that worked. They eventually boarded their train and counted stops until they reached the one closest to the Eiffel Tower. They were climbing the steps toward the surface when another message arrived from Janice.
“Where are you guys? We’re leaving the Eiffel Tower now and driving to the Arc de Triumph. Can you meet us there?”
Elaine huffed. “I guess we’re headed to the Arc de Triumph. Back to the trains.”
Elaine and Michael backtracked several stations and got on another rail line. They finally emerged from underground to see the Arc de Triumph in the distance. They walked toward it, but before they could reach the base of the giant monument, Janice called.
“Sorry, we just left. We’re headed toward the Sacre Coeur Church.”
Janice hid her frustration and asked, “Are you going to be there a while so we have time to catch up?”
“Let me ask our tour guide.” After a muffled conversation, Janice returned to the phone to say, “She said yes.”
“Okay, we’ll meet you there. I hope.” Janice ended the call and let her head fall to her chest.
“Don’t tell me. Back to the subway,” Michael said.
“Yes. Take a good look at the Arc before we go.”
Back on the subway, the pair successfully navigated a confusing line transfer to reach the Montmartre neighborhood. Then they climbed the hill on which the Sacre Coeur Church sat, overlooking Paris. At the bottom of a long staircase, they looked around for Janice.
“I don’t see her, but my feet hurt and I’m starving,” Michael said. Then he added with a smirk, “But I’m having a lot of fun.”
“Me too,” Elaine replied with a matching smirk. “Let’s find something to eat.”
They bought baguette sandwiches from one of the countless cafes in the neighborhood and sat on the lawn below the church. Hundreds of other people were doing the same thing while enjoying the spring afternoon sunshine.
“I feel like we can’t miss seeing them when they arrive,” Elaine said, surveying the pathways surrounding the grass.
“I think you’re right. Keep your eyes open. I’m sorry, but I have to shut mine for a minute and grab a little nap. This jet lag is hitting me hard.” Michael laid back and fell asleep within 60 seconds.
As she sat there staring at the parade of passing faces, jet lag hit Elaine too. She fought hard, but eventually let her head fall back to the grass. The sunbeams on her face felt warm and soothing. The next thing she knew, it was much later. She sat up and looked at her phone, which had been hidden in her fanny pack. She had missed lots of texts and calls from Janice letting her know the tour bus had run into traffic caused by an accident. Their guide decided to skip the Sacre Coeur Church and drive into downtown Paris to see the Louvre.
“Michael, wake up!”
“How long was I sleeping?” Michael asked groggily.
“Too long.”
“Where’s Janice? What happened?”
“Another change. Now they’re at the Louvre.”
“You sat here the whole time?”
“I may have fallen asleep too.”
“So now what? We go into the church instead of following this wild goose chase?”
Elaine sighed in disappointment. “If we don’t see Janice, I know I’ll regret it.”
“Back to the subway then?”
By the time they found the right trains and stations and exited near the Louvre, the sun was low in the sky. They gawked at the enormous buildings that made up the museum and wondered if they should go inside.
“How would we ever find her?” Michael asked. “We should stay in one spot and tell her to find us.”
Elaine texted her daughter to say they were outside the Louvre’s giant glass pyramid and she should look for them. Janice replied with “okay”, but never showed up. After an hour, she sent another message.
“Sorry, I couldn’t get away. We’re now walking to our last activity for the day. A cooking class. We’ll be there a long time. Here’s the address.”
Elaine looked for the spot using her phone. “It’s not far away. We’ve come this far. We might as well find her.”
After another half mile of walking through the dusk-lit Paris streets, Elaine and Michael reached a business specializing in providing French cooking classes to tourists. Janice and fifty other people belonging to her tour were inside. When she saw her parents, Janice ran from her cooking station to embrace them.
“Look at you with your hat and apron. You look so cute!” Elaine cried.
“You were hard to find,” Michael said dryly.
“Sorry for all the trouble and confusion. When you’re with a big group, you have to go with the flow. Are you hungry? I’m making some savory crepes. You can eat as many as you want.”
Elaine and Michael walked to a crepe machine where they greeted their son-in-law and his parents. Then Janice introduced them to other members of the tour group, including their French tour guide, Anne-Marie.
“Janice kept hoping to meet you. I’m sorry we couldn’t get to the same spot until now,” Anne-Marie said in a welcoming voice. “What have you done in Paris so far?”
“A lot of walking and riding the subway,” Elaine said. “We didn’t get the chance to go inside anything.”
Michael added, “We took a long lunch. And slept in the grass below the white church.”
“Sounds like you had a day in Paris like native Parisians.”
Elaine smiled and said, “Not exactly what we planned.”
“It’s very special that you can meet your daughter here. How long has it been since you have seen her?”
“I guess it’s been four days. We only live 25 miles apart.”
Anne-Marie acted surprised. “All this chasing around Paris and you live that close? I assumed you lived on different sides of America.”
“No, practically in the same town.”
“And you interrupted all your plans just to see her again? You must love your daughter very much.”
Elaine thought about the blown-up itinerary she so carefully researched. She had to smile at the ridiculousness of instead chasing Janice around the city. She turned to Anne-Marie and said with a laugh and shake of the head, “Your children make you do the craziest things.”
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