Departure
I told myself that looking back would only make it worse and that I had to say goodbye and keep walking. But I looked back with both of them.
I pressed my palm to window pane of the plane and swallowed my last image of him standing alone on the viewing deck. As the plane turned on the run way I held onto that snapshot and continued to crane my neck for one last look. Next to me the man in the tie offered me vanilla scented kleenex. Now when I think of that goodbye I think of cupcakes.
I did the same thing with her. We said goodbye on that empty park path in the late afternoon light. I turned to wave one last time but she was a shadow in the sun, the splinter pupil of a cats eye. When I turned again she had disappeared behind the sun and the shadows were longer and darker.
