Travel was always to be part of my future. My best friend, Daisy, and I imagined ourselves in many exotic places, but no one described the sights, the views of the seas, and the quaint little villages with the enthusiasm Garland did, which made me want to do it so much more. From what he was relating in one tale after another, he had been over much of England and had visited France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Now he was planning on trips to the Middle East and Asia.

His descriptions were vivid, always stressing the romantic aspects: the piazzas in Italy at sunset with musicians playing and singing, the patios in southern France overlooking the Mediterranean with views that could take your breath away, the pebble-stone streets in Greece with their small shops and restaurants, and the seaside on the Costa del Sol in Spain where he said he ate tapas and walked miles on the beach barefoot.

“I can still feel the warm sand between my toes. Have you ever walked on a beach?”

“No,” I said sadly.

“You’ll walk on one with me someday.”

“Will I?”

He tossed out his predictions for me with such assurance. Anyone hearing him would think he had a crystal ball that revealed every day of my future, and every day included him.

While he spoke, I drank more and more of his delicious lemon drink. He poured me a third and kept describing details of his most recent travels. Many of these places Daisy and I had seen pictures of in books. At home, I voiced a desire to actually see them, be there, even before I was eighteen, but my mother was not fond of real traveling, and my father always seemed to be too busy for long holidays.

“Did you always travel alone?” I asked, fishing for more information about his romantic life. After all, how does a man alone enjoy such beauty, the music, and the wonderful dinners he had described?

“Yes,” he said quickly. “I like to go about when I feel the need, move on a whim and a wish, and not have to discuss it to death,” he added, but he didn’t deny that he might have met women at these places. I sensed he might have left broken hearts trailing behind him. From what he described, a wife, at least back then, when he started his extensive traveling, was the last thing he had wanted.

“What about your parents? Did they ever go along?”

“My father was too tethered to my mother’s moods and looked forward more than anything to his hunting expeditions, because she would never go on one. He took me on a few when I was older, which is how I acquired the taste for it. I try to do at least two a year.”