Epilogue

We returned to Madrid for a visit in the spring of 1997. Mike had made partner at Price Waterhouse, as he had hoped. The Scarritts had moved to a different house—their previous landlords had wanted their lovely garden back so their daughter could get married in it. But everyone else was pretty much the same, though Julie’s friends had moved on to middle school and were seeming very grown up. We took a trip to San Sebastián, the beautiful seaside town in Basque country, which we had been too scared to visit before because of the separatist terrorism that plagued the area. But we had a safe and relaxing time there.

That summer we had visits from the Liepmanns and Rosanne Kruger, and then people started to move. The Liepmanns went to Lake Forest, Illinois, just a few minutes from my mother’s house, so I knew we’d be able to see them regularly. The Scarritts moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and we went to see them soon after they got settled. The Krugers went home to Pretoria, and Julie went to visit them when she was a freshman in high school. And the Santaularias moved to Frankfurt, where Mike visited them while on a business trip.

We went to see the Douglases in Colorado Springs, and we saw the Gronningsaters often in New York. In fact, Eric eventually went to work for Price Waterhouse. Anna Gronningsater and Julie took a summer trip to Israel and Kenya, and the Scarritts came to Lisa’s bat mitzvah in 2000.

Finally, the Scarritts moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the Douglases to Leesburg, Virginia. “Everyone’s moving closer!” Lisa told me one day.

“Yep,” I said, “if we wait long enough, everybody will end up right on the block here.”

And then, in 2002, the Liepmanns left for Osaka, Japan, and we moved to Richmond, Virginia, bringing us closer to the Scarritts and the Douglases. It has been hard to start over again in Richmond, but having Clarice and Ana available—as long as I’m willing to get into the car—has been a tremendous help to me.

When I meet new people, as I often do now, I try to work our two years in Spain into the conversation. It seems to me that they make us special, memorable.

“Wow, two years in Spain!” they often say. “What was that like?”

“It was more fun than anyone should be allowed to have,” I say.