Looking Back---The Leaving

2025Leaving (Approx. 350 wds.)
Author’s Note: My latest book, Potpourri VII, as its title indicates a collection of my recent stories, “Observations” columns and a few other writings, is now an e-book available on Amazon. It’s pretty inexpensive---$2.99. If you like my Storystar stuff you might want to get it.
Looking Back---The Leaving
I:m an old guy and have to fill my days so sometimes I reread my stories. I see that quite a few of them deal with the guy’s girl leaving him (in San Francisco) to go back to the Midwest to care for her ailing father. The event I’m about to write about happened years ago; I was still in my twenties so it’s eons ago, and my memory is pretty fuzzy but here’s my best recollection.
M--- stayed in my apartment the night before leaving. The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast. The San Francisco airport was a pretty long drive away but this was long before you had to get there hours before your flight so we were in no hurry. I don’t know if you’d call M--- a pretty girl (she was certainly not beautiful); she was petite with a snub nose but as she moved about the apartment I watched her and thought how I’d miss seeing her.
When we got to the airport we found the gate her flight was leaving from and sat on a bench to wait. I don’t think we talked very much. I asked her to call when she got there and she said she would. We said we’d call each other and maybe write some letters. In a short time the flight was called. We stood up and I gave her a last kiss. I watched her get on line and move through the gate. Then she was gone.
I left the airport, found my car and, as I remember it, found a spot from where I could see the plane taking off. It ascended to the sky, became smaller and then disappeared. I remember thinking to myself: she’s not coming back.
We exchanged calls and some letters for a few months. Then I had a letter saying she’d met her old high school sweetheart and they were getting married. I don’t recall if I wrote back. I never heard from her again. You’d think that after all this time I’d have completely gotten over it but I wrote those stories so maybe not.
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