Walking to the airport

A Letter from Katie Botkin in Italy:

“Alex,” I say.

“Tell me,” he responds.

“How do you get to the airport from your house?” I know he has to leave early for work, and he doesn’t exactly live near the bus station. If I need a taxi, I’ll have to arrange it in advance.

“Oh, you can walk,” says Alex “It takes ten or fifteen minutes.”

As I shower and emerge with dripping wet hair, he draws me a map. The next morning, after he’s flown away to Naples to have some maintenance done on his airplane, I follow this drawing dutifully, rolling my suitcase behind me.

It’s a tiny airport, and, for a second, I wonder if it’s a train station. But it isn’t, and I really have just walked to an airport for the first time ever, luggage and everything.