by Carol Reid
She’d been gone a long time, and she’d told him not to wait. She wore her oldest clothes for their reunion, tatters for a Cinderella look, sprung huaraches with one heel in shreds. There was a correctness about the greying of her braided hair and the splash of sun damage over her cheekbones. She caught her reflection in the Plexiglas door of Departures. Well.
The flight over the Atlantic made her high but not silly. Being together now would change nothing about their lives. Whatever she wore was just a costume. Their old love was just a ripple. He still had a wife and she still had the multitude of broken children in her care. She agreed to the leave prescribed by her doctor, and privately prescribed this journey for herself.
The note on the front door said “come, through Eileen!” It was warm and dusty in the hallway. A huge vase full of drooping cut flowers speckled the tile floor with pollen and a trail of light footprints in the dust signaled “walk this way” to the garden door.
She called, “Hullo!” His wife answered, “Here, out here!”
She emerged into a small square of mossy lawn, edged with dahlias, enclosed by laurel hedge. Her old lover and his wife smiled openly at her from their chairs. They gestured with shy pride at the china tea service set on the little table. Two old vegetarians baked in the sun. A dish served warm.
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