previously:

I need to find my action group and go back to work there. It seemed so much more simple back then than things are now. Interacting with men simply complicates my life in ways I’m not prepared to accept. Then again, I want a family. That almost requires me to have a man in my life. How do I find a nice one, who isn’t encumbered with ghosts, or poisoned by hatred for women? I need to move to Venus, or Mars, or Jupiter, or somewhere. Somewhere logical.

And what would that accomplish, Lucy? It’s just another way to hide.

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Admin Note: Originally published on BigCloset TopShelf by T D Aldoennetti on Mon, 2008/12/01 - 1:42am, Air Force Sweetheart -- TacPzlSolGp Chapter 31 is revised and reposted on Sat, 2010/01/02 - 12:07 PM. ~Sephrena

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WHO is Claire?:

 

Chapter 31

 

Sometime around one or two I wake up after a series of weird dreams. You know, the kind where you know you’re having a strange dream, but can’t quite remember what it was when you wake up. I do, however, remember where I put that thing. I snap on the light on the night table and get up in the muted light, not bothering with a robe. I carry the chair from my vanity over to the closet and stand on it to reach one of my hat boxes and lift it down from the shelf. Sure enough, here it is, cleverly disguised as a chic pillbox hat with a little veil.

Geez, it’s huge, I don’t remember it being that big. Scary.

I leave the chair in the closet, so I can put the hat box back later on, then I go into the bathroom to look through my medicine cabinet so I can find the lubricant, just in case.

I lay on the bed and rearrange my nightgown and the bedcovers, then begin trying to entice myself to produce lubricant. No dice. I hope I haven’t waited too long. I put a little from the tube onto the thing and begin again. It enters a little, so I add just a little more lubricant. As I continue I am finally rewarded with my own and I continue until I reach about the depth the doctor’s want. I wonder what would happen if I go further and finally stop with just a little more of it in me.

Now I just wait for the clock. I start reading my novel and awaken about forty minutes later with my hip joints stiff and sore from being splayed out like that. The thing is stuck. With great care, I manage to get it to move and finally slide it out of me. Thank God. Putting my legs together entails a few grimaces but I manage. With aching muscles, I manage to hobble into the bathroom, where I clean myself and the thing. Afterward, I put it back into its protective pink plastic container and put everything away again. The chair goes back over to my vanity and I go back to bed.

Now that I’m beginning to be more comfortable around men, or at least one of them, I’d better be able to accomplish the deed if I should haappen to wind up with a real fiancée. I think I know what’s happening with Randolf too. It’s called transference. I guess he’s feeling that if he keeps me alive and away from the creep then he is making it up to his wife. Just as long as he doesn’t begin thinking that I am his former wife. I need to be careful around him. He’s a nice guy and all, but I don’t need to wind up in a love triangle when my rival is already dead. I’ve seen this movie before, and have no desire to be the second Mrs. de Winter to his mysterious (and dead) former wife’s Rebecca. It’s all a little too gothic for me.

I go back to sleep and have weird dreams about him using my life energy to bring his wife back from the dead so now I’m the one who’s dead. Now that’s scary. I’m down in a coffin screaming and yelling for someone to come let me out but I’m covered in mud and spiders. Nasty dream.

WHAT? Oh. The alarm clock. I almost never sleep until it goes off. Thank goodness I don’t go to work today, I’d already be thirty minutes late getting ready. The weather is cooler now but during the day it still isn’t bad yet. In the low seventies, usually. I turn on the radio to find a weather report so I will know what today’s going to be like. Whoops! I almost missed the forecast. The announcer is just running down his list of quick summaries and he’s on the Maryland suburbs already. Ah, seventy-four in Springdale. Close enough. Scattered clouds cooling to sixty in the evening. Okay, I can wear my nice green walking skirt and blouse with my white merino sweater around my shoulders until it begins to cool, then I’ll put it on. I like my legs out and cool so the long skirt will be nice, I’ll still feel the air but will look a little dressy. We are going walking, so flats, no, I’ll wear my white sneakers to match the sweater.

My clothes planned, I go take a shower and wash my hair. Then go through the ritual drying.

Brush, brush, brush. I must have been sleeping on my head all night, since my hair is a mess. Brush, brush, brush. That took a lot longer than usual.

I put on my undies and sit to apply some makeup. Enough that I have some on but not enough to make him realize it. Light colour on the shadow mostly to match my eyes and a hint in my eye shadow toward the forest green skirt and light green blouse. I need to take my wig off tonight and wash and brush my own hair. It’s almost four inches now, so I’ll only need about seven more years to match the length of the wig. Meanwhile, it’s hot, with my hair providing extra insulation under the wig.

I take the skirt and blouse from the closet and hang them temporarily on the coat hook as I continue dressing. I pull two petticoats — for warmth as well as shape — and some thin white socks from the dresser and take my white sneakers from the closet, then start dressing in earnest. I put my shoes on first, so I don’t wrinkle my blouse bending over, then start with a full slip and the two petticoats and go on from there, finishing by pulling down the bottom of my blouse from under my skirt, carefully arranging the pleats just so, then transfer my things to a small white purse to match my sweater. Now where is that sweater? Figures, bottom layer. Smells okay, the sachet is still doing its job.

Careful inspection shows me that the sweater looks okay too. Good.

I find a pale green bow and tie my hair so it hangs long down my back with the bow down toward the nape of my neck. Hmmm… maybe a little too girlish. Drop the bow. Ahh, ponytail. YESSS.

0700. I hope there’s still time to make breakfast. Down I go to find Mom sipping her coffee.

Daddy is already in his office away from the office.

“Hi, Mom. What’s for breakfast today?

“Eggs however you want them, Coffee, toast and peach marmalade, either sausage or ham. You’d better go out and let them know you’re here or you may miss out. I think they are already into clean up.”

“Be right back, Mom.”

I scoot out to the kitchen to see the cooks in the midst of cleanup with some food still waiting to be prepared.

“Hi, Lucy. We were beginning to think you were going to sleep in. Anything that’s still out we can fix for you.”

“Cool, how about three scrambled eggs, two slices of toast, coffee and a small to medium slice of ham?”

“Glad you want the ham. All the sausages are gone until we pull another frozen block out to thaw. Okay, get on in there and the coffee will be along in a minute. The food will follow shortly. Go on, I know you like to cook, but this is my kitchen and you’re in the way.”

I pretend to pout and he pretends to be annoyed, then I go to the dining room while saying, “One of these days you are going to teach me how you make that wonderful salad of yours. I’ll make a point of annoying you until you do.”

“Heaven forbid. How about next Sunday, a week? I’ll schedule it into the luncheon meal.”

“Sounds good to me,” I call back as the door swings shut.

After breakfast I put on my lipstick and check myself again then sit with a novel to wait until Randolf drives up.

I hear a car in the drive before I finish a single page.

-o~O~o-

Well, I really enjoyed that first real date with Randolf, as well as all the following dates, once to the National Symphony Orchestra for an evening of Brahms, which was delightful, and we were lucky to hear it, because they went out on strike the very next week. It was great fun as well, at least for me, to be able to dress in evening wear and not be ‘on call’ at an embassy or consulate, dancing on the edge of espionage with a report due the next day.

Most of our dates weren’t quite that grand, but we explored every inch of Randolf’s park, and became familiar with a number of local restaurants, went to movies (I loved Doctor Zhivago — Omar Sharif and Julie Christie were wonderful together — and of course I deeply empathized with Lara’s troubles) and a few home games of the Washington Redskins. Randolf said that he was looking forward to seeing the Bullets play when basketball season rolled around, because it’s a faster game, so I began to think that my own troubles were over. Randolf’s deceased wife (or her ghost, whom I imagined by now to be a cross between Mata Hari and Luciana Paluzzi’s Fiona Volpe, the femme fatale and assassin from the last Bond movie, all busty and titian-haired and exotic, the perfect spy) never came up, and Randolf was just a nice guy with a really weird job.

-o~O~o-

The lunches in the cafeteria have become a tradition. Every working day that we’re both available for lunch, we spend together. That turns out to be slightly more than half the working days. We spend our meals in happy conversation and regale each other with stories of the places we’ve seen or lived in during our travels around the world.

Soldiers tend to seize the day wherever they go. We’re often strangers, surrounded by strange cultures and people who speak unfamiliar languages, so they savor all those moments of amazement and joy they stumble across, the sunburst of a tropical dawn, the interesting face in a marketplace, the taste of fruits without names that they’ve never seen before, the aromas of mysterious cuisines wafting through the air of towns where all the signs and advertisements are written in strange letters and symbols, all those moments which might never be repeated.

We remember too all those brief minutes with our comrades in arms, things we’ll carry with us into our old age. A joke, a smile, a moment of picturesque awareness shared with relative strangers, cast together at random under a bright blue sky, surrounded by the breathtaking hues of exotic flowers and lush greens we’ve never seen before, conjuring instant nostalgia for moments we all realize may never be never be repeated in our lifetimes, may be the very last moments of happiness, even joy, for some of us.

I tell him about the TacPzlSolGp and the fun I had working with the “young” men and women. I think back and resolve to ask Daddy about them again. I’d still like to know whether they’re still around.

I also tell him about ‘Grandfather,’ the old taxi driver. After I got out of the hospital, I’d tracked him down and explained what had happened. I paid him for the days I should have been there, and gave him a gift for his grandchildren telling him that I was returning to the States but, should I ever return, then I’ find him and he’d be my only driver again.

Randolf and I have begun to spend more time together on weekends.

After the first four months, we’ve been spending a lot of time together. The past four or five months have been almost a blur, with every Saturday our day to explore the local sights and attractions. We’ve been to the Smithsonian several times, toured the famous battle sites of the Revolution and the Civil War, Fort Washington, of course, and Harpers Ferry, where John Brown launched his abortive insurrection meant to free the slaves. We drove the long road to Appomattox and back, starting long before the sun’s rise and ending long after it set, but worth it to see where Lee surrendered and the USA was re-formed, took the somewhat shorter journey north to see Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner as the British shelled it in 1814.

We spent time lazing on the many beaches on the shores of Chesapeake Bay as well, and hiking park trails all around the area, all together encompassing the small portion of the world we have available to us.

He received his promotion and we’re both extremely busy, but somehow we manage to make the time for our lunches and Saturdays together.

We’re returning late one night from a delightful excursion to Philadelphia (Yes, we saw Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, and had genuine Philly cheesesteak sandwiches from Pat’s King of Steaks); we’d started early and are ending late. He’s taking me home and we’re talking about our day, and the strange series of events that set all the wheels in motion that somehow resulted in our winding up together.

We’ve been driving for a while and are both caught up in our conversation and memories of the day’s events when I finally realize that we missed the exit to the highway back to my house.

I say, “Randolf, you missed the turn-off.”

“Missed what?”

“You missed my turn-off. We’re past it.”

“What turn-off?”

“Randolf, you’re taking me home. We missed my exit.”

“Home? Claire, what are you talking about? I am taking us home.”

Oh Geez. Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Unsure of what I should do, but not wanting to betray Father’s confidence, I ask, with appropriate displeasure, “Who’s Claire? Randolf, are you seeing someone else?”

He glances at me and back to the road, “Claire, what are you….” Then suddenly, his eyes open wide and he snaps his head back toward me, staring at me, the road forgotten. I see the road going slightly left as we are going slightly right and scream. He looks back just in time to avoid the railing and gains control then slows, pulls to the shoulder and stops.

“Randolf what are you doing? This isn’t funny. Take me home.”

He looks at me as though he’s confused.

“Randolf this is me, Lucy. Remember? Who’s Claire?”

I’m beginning to guess that he hasn’t a clue what’s happened to him.

“Lucy? Lucy! Oh God. I’m sorry, Lucy.”

“Who’s Claire? Are you seeing someone?”

“I… no… That is….”

“I think you’d better take me home, Randolf. If you’ going to see someone else, then I don’t want to go out with you anymore.”

“Lucy, please let me explain.”

“Explain what? That you don’t like me anymore? That I’m nice to date but you need someone else? I can’t play that game, Randolf. It has to be me or someone else. I don’t share well, so you have to choose.”

“Lucy! It isn’t like that. There’s no one else.”

“Then who’s Claire? I think she qualifies as someone else.” I have a hint of anger in my voice, even though I’m deceiving him, because the whole situation ticks me off and I know damned well who Claire was, even though I hadn’t known her name until just now. I’d thought that he was over her. Silly me.

“Claire’s dead,” his face suddenly becomes rock hard. I’ve never seen him like this, and it’s a bit frightening. I think that he may be going into some sort of melt-down right now and here we are by the side of the road with a few cars whizzing by in the darkness and no people in sight. I put my hand on the door-handle ready to jump out and run for my life should he decide to drive off before we resolve this, or he does something crazy.

His face softens again, “Claire’s dead,” he says in a voice so quiet and hollow it’s like everything which made him Randolf in my eyes has somehow dissolved into nothingness leaving only a husk behind.

He turns to me just as I’m easing the door handle up so I can push the door open and be out in a split second. I don’t relish the thought of traipsing around in the snow dressed the way I am, but that’s better than remaining at the mercy of someone who might become violently insane at any moment.

“Lucy, I’m sorry. I just… We are having so much fun that I….” His eyes close for a few seconds, then just one sob escapes his lips. “Claire’s dead…. My wife is dead.”

He sits there for perhaps three or four minutes just staring into the distance. I now firmly believe he has gone catatonic. Suddenly he is moving again and looking at me as I edge the door very slightly open in preparation for flight. His voice has returned to near normal and his eyes, instead of that vacant stare into infinity, have returned to what seems to be a reasonable concern for our relationship and fear that his present actions may have jeopardized it.

“Lucy, I’m okay now. Let me get you home and then I’ll…. I’ll tell you all about her and what happened.”

I’m all in favor of going home. A light snow is beginning to fall again. It’s quite cold out for this late in the season, and I’m rethinking my chances outside the car. Maybe Randolf isn’t as crazy as he looked just now.

“All right. Take me home and you will then come inside and we’ll talk.” I put a little ‘I’m not convinced’ into my voice and finish opening, then shut the door once more to be sure it’s latched.

He nods his head and looks around as though uncertain of his location.

“My exit is about two miles behind us,” I tell him.

He looks back again as though disoriented, his gaze once again listless and unfocused. This isn't good.

“Randolf, Washington is that way,” indicating the road ahead of us, “The exit to take us toward Northwest Baltimore is back there.”

He seems to have found himself again. We’ll have to go further toward Washington in order to find an exit so we can turn around. Crossing the median is impossible, not to mention illegal, due to the snow piled there from a winter season which has been a little warmer this year, but not warm enough to melt the snow away completely, so what’s left of it has coalesced into dirty brown icebergs of ice, salt residue, and road dirt. We’re well into March with occasional snow storms still, and it shows no sign of letting us off the hook anytime in the near future.

We find another exit about three miles further and he gets us turned around aannd headed back to my turnoff without another word out of him. We finally come to my exit and make the transition winding up on the highway leading off away from downtown Baltimore and on toward home. Nothing further has been said as we drive. Another twenty minutes finds us approaching the gates of the property and I fish in my purse for the little control security gave to me. I push the button and in a few seconds the gate begins to open. Randolf drives us up to the house. I let myself out of the car as he is exiting his side. He halts and watches me as I close the passenger door.

“See you tomorrow, Lucy?”

“I don’t think so. If you won’t explain, then I don’t think we need to see each other any more, except as work requires it.”

“Fine, just fine,” he says coldly. He gets back into the car and drives toward the gate.

My shoulder’s slump and I turn and go to stand in the doorway as my eyes begin to fill with tears. I stand by the door for a minute or two willing him to return and talk with me. All I hear is the howl of the wind as the storm is growing and I am chilling. Finally I close the door and walk upstairs to my room where I prepare for bed. I place my fleece lined boots where they may dry, after wiping them off, and then hang my clothes. Claire. Well, now I know his wife’s name.

If only he had talked with me. He needs to let her go. We need our own lives. I guess that isn’t possible for him. She haunts him. No that’s not right. He forces the memory to haunt himself. I can’t compete with that. I am not nor do I want to be Claire. I finally fall into sleep, tired from the day and the sudden emotions encountered at the end of it.

I wake up in the morning with the sun pouring through my window shades. The clock says it’s eight fifteen. I’m late for… No, this is Sunday. I think I’ll put in for two weeks leave. Maybe go home and visit Mom and Sis. Maybe spend a little time alone. Give me time to think. Anything. I just can’t face spending time with Randol… Colonel Scott. I’d better become accustomed to that now that we are no longer an ‘item.’ Colonel Scott. He can go live with his memories, I can’t compete with them and I’m not going to do so. I’ll put in for a transfer. Daddy won’t like it but I need some distance. It was so nice,though, for a while. I really like him…. Correction, I really liked him.

“Lucy? Lucy, are you well?”

“Come in, Mom.”

“I had thought you and your Randolf were gone all night but security said you came in about midnight.”

“He isn’t ‘my’ Randolf, Mom. In fact he’s still Claire’s Randolf.”

“Claire?”

“His dead wife. He came apart on the way home last night. He can’t let her go.”

“Did he hurt you? Are you all right? I’ll tell Phillip,” she had come over to sit on the bed next to where I’m laying but begins to get up to go tell Father.

“No. No, nothing like that. He just forgot who I am. He thought he was driving home with Claire and it took about ten minutes to bring him around so he could bring me home again. I liked him, Mom. I really liked him.”

I break out into heavy tears and sobs and sit up to hang onto Mom as I cry out my sorrows.

Eventually I am able to talk again.

“I asked him to come in and explain but he just drove away. I’m not going to waste my time trying to pry him away from a memory. If he can’t handle flesh and blood when it’s right in front of him then that’s his tough luck. There’s someone out there for me and I need to find him. I’m just running out of time.”

I’m doing better now that I’ve had a good cry so Mom goes out again. All the other women at work will be overjoyed to find he is on the ‘market’ again. I suppose I didn’t mean that much to him after all, if he was dating me because he sees his dead wife in me. I was right about transference. I wonder if she looked like me.

I have a headache. Filling a glass with water I take two aspirin before soaking in the tub and getting dressed. By the time I finish it has clouded again. That’s fine with me, that’s about how I feel — clouded.

I have made my bed but need some more sleep so I lay back down on top of it and take a nap. My dreams are chaotic culminating in me being shot running across a bridge. I feel a hand on my arm and look up to see Randolf for the last time but it isn’t him….

“Mom? What?”

“You are a difficult one to awaken. Lucy, it’s nearly lunch. Are you going to come down or stay in your room moping all day?”

“Lunch?” I reach over and look at my clock. 11:50. Great, Colonel Scott has really gotten to me.

“I’ll be right down. I guess I’m just not much in the mood for company at the moment.”

Lunch was good, as usual. There’s been no word from Colonel Scott. Daddy comes out of his office to join us. As we’re nearly finished, I seize the opportunity to ask him about two weeks leave. Mom gives him a glance, ‘don’t ask.’

“I don’t think we have anything pressing at the moment. How’s your work backlog?”

“I’m current. I finished the last on Friday and turned it in. Unless something comes in tomorrow, my plate is clear.”

He thinks about what he has going on, “Nothing seems urgent. I suppose we could cut the orders and give you some time off. Going to spend it with Randolf?”

“Colonel Scott and I aren’t spending time together any more. I’d like to go home for a couple of weeks to visit my mother and sister. Time to think for a change. Maybe I’ll put in for a transfer.”

His eyebrows show confusion as one rises and one drops at my answer. He looks at Mom who simply shakes her head, ‘DON’t ask.’

“Okay, I’ll arrange for the orders to be cut today and faxed back here to me. We can copy them in my office and you could leave from Baltimore this afternoon. Why would you want to go visit in the winter? It will still be difficult to get around.”

“I just need to go, Daddy. I… I can’t talk about it.”

“Did he hurt you? He won’t get away with it.”

“NO. No he didn’t hurt me. At least not physically. I simply can’t compete with Claire.”

“Claire? He told you about Claire?”

That name seems to have come up an awful lot lately.

“Claire was his wife. His dead wife. He didn’t have to tell me. I knew who it was as soon as he called me by her name.”

“Oh. He finally told you?”

“No,” I say again, and have to tell the whole story again, which winds up ending with me running upstairs to my room in tears again.

Mom comes up and holds me as I’m wracked with grief and sobbing uncontrollably in her arms once more. Déjà vu. I really need that vacation. I need to erect some protection around those horrible memories, so I don’t fall apart every time I think of him. I am finally doing better and Mom goes out allowing me to cleanse my face yet again.

Sometime later there’s a knock at the door and Daddy comes in with twenty copies of orders allowing me two weeks to find myself.

“Lucy, where did you last see Colonel Scott?” he asks me.

“Here. He brought me home around midnight and then wouldn’t come in to talk. The last I saw him he drove out the gate. Why?”

“No one seems to be able to locate him. Was it snowing when he left?”

“Yes. Pretty hard. The steps had ice on them too. I nearly slipped coming in.”

“Okay. Thanks. We’ll try to follow his path starting here and assuming he was going home.”

“I don’t know if that will work. He seemed… distant… like he was in a fog and couldn’t find his way out. I’m going to come help find him.”

“No. You’re not. We’ll find him. You are going to Wyoming. You’re on leave, remember?”

“Daddy, leave or not, I can’t just let him be wandering around lost somewhere when he needs my help.”

“Yes, you can and you will. Despite the fact that you asked for them, these papers are orders, Lucy. They say that you’re going to Wyoming, and that’s exactly where you’ll go. I don’t want my daughter to wind up seeing someone she loves possibly going, or gone, completely off the deep end. You don’t need that. You need to remember the happy times you had with him and fully recover from your own problems before you’re strong enough to take on this burden, so you will let us handle this. Now pack. You’re scheduled to go to Wyoming on an airplane at 1950. That gives you about two hours to pack, an hour to get to the airport and thirty minutes to wait for the plane. Now move, Colonel, and travel in uniform.”

Daddy sounds mad, “Daddy don’t hurt him. Even if he has finally flipped, he was still protective of me.”

“We won’t, Lucy. We just want to find him and be certain he’s okay.”

As I pack, I worry. I finally finish and have three cases plus my cosmetics. I’m dressed in uniform and I’ll draw more money from my account if I need it after I get to Cheyenne. I can pay for my ticket with my Visa card. I feel like I’m deserting Rand… I mean, Colonel Scott, under fire.

The car taking me to the airport is right on time. My luggage goes into the trunk and I go into the back. We arrive just under an hour later, what would have been a thirty minute trip in the summer.

Check-in goes smoothly, and I’m waiting for the passengers to disembark so they can begin boarding call. My connecting flight to Cheyenne from Denver is at four thirty tomorrow morning, about ten hours from now. I’d better sleep on the plane as much as possible.

I feel the elevator sensation as we lift off the runway. I nap until I finally feel the bump of our arrival in Denver. I’m emotionally drained. At least this time there was no forced sex and I wasn’t beaten, not physically anyway.

I really had hopes for this relationship. After all our conversations we found that we both want children, I want children just as much as he does; we've both seen more than enough death. He wants a ‘touchy feely’ relationship, and so do I.

We’d both like to live in Maryland, somewhere between DC and Baltimore. We both like our work and are willing to allow the other to continue in their work, even if I become a Mom. We’ve gone so far as to pick four names for our children and to decide we want two girls and two boys. I even called Mom a few times to ask her about the eggs and about how I might increase the odds in favor of one gender or the other, among the other things a girl needs to know, and which I never had the time to learn.

All the generous and loving support he’s given me these past months has finally allowed me to come back out of my shell. But now he needs me, and what am I doing??? Running away. Coward.

In the airport, I eat another of those vending machine ‘somethings’ they misleadingly call ‘snacks’ as I wait. I’m seated near the boarding counter and my luggage is checked through. The room is nearly empty.

Again I nap, waking with a crick in my neck a little over six hours later to the increased sound level. It’s about thirty minutes to boarding so I find an open restroom and take care of things, then rinse my face and pat it dry with paper towels. Fresh makeup and I’m a new woman. I return to the lobby to check in for the short flight to Cheyenne.

It’s too dark to easily see my luggage but I think I recognize a case or two as it goes on board. From the luggage I’d say we have four or five flying. I guess Cheyenne isn’t all that big a tourist stop even though it’s the Capitol. Maybe I’ll lease a car and drive across the state to Yellowstone. That might be fun. Then I remember, the park is probably closed for the winter months. Guess I’ll just start doing things alone again and see if I have a chance to find myself.

The visit with Mom and Sis might help. I could always fly out after a week and go somewhere warm like California or Arizona or someplace for my second week.

We land and I’m pulling on the heavy uniform winter overcoat even as we exit the aircraft. It’s five thirty, still a bit early to call Mom. Sis might be up, Tony goes to work about six as I recall and Janet follows him in at about eight. Then again I could just lounge around here for an hour or so then call Mom and take a cab.

Good idea. I go to get a cup of coffee.

Huh? The price has gone up again, to thirty-five cents, for coffee that tastes like they use a whole tablespoonful of recycled coffee grounds per gallon. It’s highway robbery. Oh well, you can’t complain to a vending machine. Someday they need to put a small café, or maybe a coffee stand in here. Of course it would probably go bankrupt, as there isn’t enough traffic to support it. Time creeps along like the weather has frozen it to the consistency of salt-water taffy, but finally 6:30 comes along, looks around, and decides to go back to sleep.

I figure I’ll give Mom until seven, then call. I check to see that I have enough change and then go for another cup of vending machine coffee. It looks like instant and tastes like ditch water, but it’s better than nothing.

At 7:08, time speeds up a little and the sun is just making its appearance, throwing a dusky grey light through the cloud cover. A light snow is falling and people are moving around the terminal again. I opt for the phone call and a cab. As I walk out the door into the chill morning air, the sun is just beginning to brush aside the clouds, so it can warm the cold Earth beneath.

---

 

To Be Continued….       © 2008, 2009 by T D Aldoennetti & Rénae Dúmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the Author (copyright holder) or her assigned representative. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. An Aldoennetti Original.