Perfect Angel

Her hand slips from mine, and I watch her saunter, lazily kicking a straight leg up a little with every few steps, fluttering her long, draping dress. Dragging her flowered carry-on suitcase even though it didn’t have wheels. Back and forth through the security maze, never looking at me–

I stand there as long as I can, watching her. Slipping off her shoes. Smiling at the security guy as he coldly tells her to step through the scanner. Down, around the screens and gone.

And that was that.

I stand there, watching after her, as if the air through which she’d passed was still full of her essence, like I could survive on it alone. And slowly, I realize. Never again would I see her, stroke her, feel her silken hair against my back, bathe in one of her smiles.

And right there in the airport, right there in the crowd of travelers happy and sad, I the was saddest of all. The tears won’t come, then they do come, and then I am looking for somewhere private in the most public of places; saltwater-blurred faces are watching.

*

Then the adrenaline. Running. Guards glaring, people dodging. I had to get a taxi, the hell with BART, a taxi. Then I had to go away.

*

I had another day in San Francisco to live through before my plane, but she was gone, and the city would remind me of her for the rest of my life.

I think of going to the Midwest and disappearing. Then I almost think of my children, needing a father, loving me without a wit of judgment, requiring me to grow up healthy, but I don’t, okay I do. But I push that thought away. And I cannot think of my wife. I love her so much my heart wants to just stop, just stop. But I don’t think of her, okay I do. My best friend, my only friend, with whom I could never share my past few days, because there she is, trusting, loving. She’s jealous by nature. If she knew, oh hell, if she knew. But I push that thought away.

Home?

Huh. The Midwest? Or the West? Or home.

Anywhere.

But not San Francisco.

Perfect Angel4.756