Our hotel room overlooked the Stuttgart gardens and the Neues Schloss. Having lived and loved the city where when I was a new bride eons ago, I wasn't about to let my second husband come to a conference there alone.
Although I was itching to get out and explore many of the places I loved, never mind a good German lunch with hot potato salad, I was editing a financial newsletter that I had to finish and send it before I could go out.
A knock at the door.
"Komm Herin." My German had been reduced to shopping German with very simple sentences and that had a lilt of the regional Schwäbicsh and a mix of the Bostonian.
The housemaid apologised and said she'd come back. Her accent had Anglo overtones.
"Sprechen Sie Englisch?" I asked.
"I'm a Brit," she said.
My writer's curiousity went into high gear. It resulted in a great conversation, after I requested if I could ask some questions.
She said yes, and we changed the bed together.
She had moved there because her son, who was on the high spectrum of the autistic level, had been bullied at his comprehensive school in London. For some reason, which she didn't totally understand, on a vacation, he had fallen in love with Stuttgart.
She moved countries for him.
In his new school he wasn't bullied and he seemed to absorb the language, "Faster than I have," she said.
In London she had been a social worker, but she didn't have the credentials to work in her field in Germany. Housekeeping in a hotel was work she could find. "It pays the bills," she said.
She also explained, she had an interview with a non-profit that thought her background and her knowledge of British agencies would make them a good match. She was still waiting for the contract.
I would have loved to talk to her more, but she had other beds to make.
Walking through the gardens to Kögnistrasse, I thought how brave she was. I thought of the power of motherhood to protect children.
I never learned her name, and I never found out if she received the contract or how her son was doing as he went through his teens into young manhood.
Note: This is the second vignette for people I've met by chance and our lives have touched for a short time. They become part of my memories. Visit my website at https://dlnelsonswriter.com
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