He glances back. “What is?”
“Your Dutch. It sounds harsh. Like you’re about to start a fight.”
He chuckles, holding the taxi door for me. “Relax. If I were picking a fight, you’d know.”
The driver takes our suitcases. I slide into the backseat, grateful for the warmth. Tom joins me and gives the driver his address.
Prinsengracht, says the screen. I have no idea how to pronounce that.
The ride begins calmly, driving under a viaduct while a massive airplane taxis overhead.
Fields stretch along the highway. Amsterdam’s skyline rises up against the horizon. Within a solid ten minutes we’re surrounded by towers of glass.
One massive building steals my attention. Glass and stone rise up in raw shapes like uncut crystals. It looks apocalyptic.
This city feels like rubbing salt into my old wounds, New York, Times Square, all that circus. Amsterdam isn’t the same, but it stirs something familiar.
The look of it changes as we move closer to the center.
That’s where the canals begin, one after another. Endless rows of canal houses pressed together.
They look old and majestic. I recognize the architecture from Avalon, though Saint Luna’s center is painted in pinks, yellows, and turquoise. Here the houses are more somber: brown orred brick, gabled roofs, arched doorways, and dainty ornaments above the tall old windows. Cozy in a different, less tropical way.
Also, the amount of bikes in this city is unreal. They’re everywhere, stacked and tangled like weeds gone wild— whole dumping grounds of them. I swear I’ve never seen so many in my life.
“Is that even safe?” I ask, pointing at a row of houses leaning forward like the Tower of Pisa.
Tom nods. “Safe enough. I’ve never seen one of them collapse. They used to build them on timber pilings, the soft ground made them sink a little. And you know, a lot of these houses are centuries old. Back then, the wider your building, the more tax you paid. Narrow was cheaper.”
“Interesting. You live in one of these?”
“Yeah, it’s just a few blocks from here. You’ll see.”
The taxi stops in front of one of the bigger canal houses. Tall windows, a heavy wooden door with black iron framing. It looks more like the gate of a fortress than an entrance.
Through a gap in the curtain on the ground floor, I catch a glimpse of an elderly woman with a mug of coffee and the morning paper spread open in front of her. Eight o’clock; breakfast time in Amsterdam. The sight is so ordinary, so cozy, it makes me smile.
Tom swipes his card and we leave the taxi.
I tilt my head back, taking in the building on the corner. It’s one of the larger canal houses, definitely split into multiple apartments.
“This is your building?”
“Yeah,” he says, already holding the door for me. “My apartment’s on the second floor.”
We step inside and my eyes go over the column of nameplates. McKenna appears three times.
The lobby is a little echoey because everything is open and the ceiling is high. It feels a bit like a gothic church, antique and a little fancy. Nothing sober about it. Roaring twenties I’d say, or at least pre-war.
The elevator is one of those old open cages I’ve only ever seen in movies.
“Jugendstil,” Tom says. He must've read my expression.
“Your family lives here too?”
“Not all of them. Just Joan and Finn.”
The elevator doors slide open. Tom presses the button for the second floor.
