I raised my camera and tried to frame Cologne Cathedral. It shadowed the plaza with Gothic buttresses of ashen stone and the blackened backsides of its stained-glass windows.
Rain pelted me and began soaking through my shirt.
In the distance, Avery began crying.
Dani touched my shoulder.
I set my camera down.
“We can’t stay here.”
Still, I paused.
“Do we need tickets to enter?”
She crossed her arms.
“I … don’t know.”
Corbin stood beside us with rain dripping from his hood. He pulled at Dani’s sleeve.
“Let’s just go to the cathedral entrance. Someone there will tell us.”
So, we crossed the plaza, Avery bouncing in the stroller step-by-step toward the building, Corbin falling a hundred steps behind.
I went back for him, and together we hurried into the shelter of the cathedral walls.
Security guards and metal detectors. A doorway beyond.
Dani rushed through with the kids.
I stopped.
“Do we need tickets?”
He pointed at me, then toward the dark interior, and said something I didn’t understand.
I walked in anyway.
He stopped me and pointed at my head.
I removed my hat.
Then I ran to catch up with my family.
Inside, the cathedral escaped scale entirely.
I raised my camera and backed up to the widest setting.
Rows of pews cascaded into the distance, ending at a gilded shrine holding the gifts of the Magi. A walkway wrapped the perimeter, with small chapels branching off, each dense with paintings and stained glass. Gray light filtered through the windows.
I framed the shot.
Behind me, Corbin ran between the pews.
I sighed, lowered the camera, and went to retrieve him.
Dani was already there, holding Avery, and whispering into his ear.
“This isn’t a place to play. Please be quiet. We’ll be done soon.”
I raised my camera again.
Corbin’s lizard and spider lay across a pew.
Avery’s hippo rolled onto the floor.
A priest passed. His eyes staying on us for too long.
I lowered my camera again, and this time, I put it away.
We gathered the animals and put them back into the boys’ pockets.
Corbin settled.
Avery ran.
We caught him.
Corbin erupted.
Another priest appeared.
More stern looks.
More shushing.
Dani grabbed one kid, I grabbed the other.
“This isn’t a playground. Look. ”
I pointed at the cathedral around me.
Corbin pointed at his animals.
Then somewhere above us, the organ began to play.
Corbin stopped.
The sound filled the space.
He dropped his toys.
For the first time since we entered, he stood still.
“Look.”
I followed his gaze.
“The cathedral. The windows. The paintings.”
“I know …”
His little voice barely rose above the background.
Then he picked up his lizard and spider and went back to playing on the floor.
~
That was last week. Now we were back in Cologne.
As we neared the train station, the spires of the Cologne Cathedral emerged once again through the mist.
Then Dani was pointing somewhere else.
“What’s this?”
I followed her finger—a sculpture set in a shallow pond, with stone pathways, climbable structures, and a network of platforms bridging the water.
The kids ran ahead, testing each stone, hopping between dry spots, and chasing each other
across the winding paths.
I watched, hands shoved into my jacket pockets against the cold, Dani standing next to me as they climbed higher and grew bolder.
Rain gathered on the stone, making it slick in places, but that didn’t slow them in the least.
Dani turned to me, then nodded towards the cathedral breaking over the rooftops.
“Go. Take your photos while we’re here.”
I ran.
~
Rain slicked the cobblestones. I lifted the camera again.
The spires rose behind the station’s power lines. I shifted left, then right, trying to make the wires and stone occupy the same frame. I backed into the street for another angle. An archway appeared that I hadn’t noticed before. Then a narrow door set deep into the stone.
I followed it.
Inside, I found a ticket counter with a pane of glass between me and the person on the other side. I stopped.
My phone had no reception.
I tried Dani anyway.
Nothing.
I looked back through the glass, then at my phone again. I could go in. I could spend ten minutes looking around. I could also lose ten minutes and have no way to tell them where I was.
I stepped back out, then I found it almost at once—the thing I’d come for—a little crosshatched diagram showing which parts of the cathedral came from which century.
Years before I visited Cologne, I’d come across an argument online where people pointed at the shading as proof of something else.
“See? The walls are shown shaded with bands of original stone and 1600s stone. The only way to mix old and new stone like that is to tear down the walls and rebuild everything in the 1600s. The cathedral is younger than they tell you.”
The explanation had seemed plausible enough that I’d remembered it.
I looked at the diagram.
Then at the stone overhead.
The vertical hatches weren’t walls at all. They were the flying buttresses, curving out from the nave like ribs.
I stood there for a moment, looking from the drawing to the building and back again.
Then I laughed.
~
At the pond, Dani watched a man set up a bubble-making rig. His equipment sat inside a red Radio Flyer wagon—two poles, a rope dipped into soapy water, and a quiet satisfaction on his face.
The kids noticed immediately.
Corbin chased them, reaching up as they floated just beyond his hands. One burst against a wet stone. Another rose above Avery before the wind carried it away.
Dani let them play until their energy faded, until the cold finally started seeping in.
~
When I came back outside, the rain had thinned to a mist.
My family was waiting under an awning, bundled against the cold.
Dani looked at me.
Her eyes were tired.
“Ready?”
I nodded.
We turned and walked toward the train station below the cathedral.
~
A single train to Mainz was listed for the rest of the day.
It left in four minutes.
“Track two.”
Bags bounced against our sides. The kids’ backpacks shifted on our shoulders. The stroller clattered over the tiles behind us.
At Track 2, I turned left and ran up the stairs.
The signs didn’t match.
Mainz wasn’t listed.
I ran back down the ramp.
The departure board was still where we’d left it, but now the letters and numbers seemed to swirl together: track numbers, abbreviations, unfamiliar destinations, times changing as I watched.
I looked at the board again.
Slowly, the pieces separated.
“There. Track seven B.”
We ran again.
People stepped aside as we pushed through with the stroller and bags. I ran ahead while Dani followed with the kids, waiting for my signal before bringing them onto the platform.
A train was sitting there.
Its doors were open.
MAINZ scrolled along its windows in yellow lights.
I yelled behind me.
“It’s here!”
Then I ran.
I had no idea how much time was left, so I stood in the doorway.
Dani came running up the steps toward me—first her head, then her body.
Behind her she bounced the stroller. Avery bouncing with it, as Corbin ran alongside.
I stayed where I was.
A buzzer sounded somewhere inside the train. The light above the door flashed.
I helped lift the stroller over the gap, then stepped aside as Dani and the kids clambered aboard.
The doors slid shut.
The alarm silenced.
The train began to move.
Outside, the Rhine slid past the window in the dark.