I waited for the man in the coffee shop that night stealing a gaze out the window. The air appeared crisp leaving condensation on the window. Raindrops slipped down the glass like the icy tears of a woman’s pain.
I remember the man's cold eyes.
Sharp like icicles stabbed me in the heart where I held my love for him like the day he told me he no longer loved me because he had to leave. There was another woman was it? He never gave me a reason why. But my pain demanded a reason. Maybe the reason would help me heal.
So earlier tonight, I was surprised when he called me. Out of the blue he called me and asked to meet him here at the coffee shop. Of course I agreed.
So, here I am sitting near the window waiting for him. The condensation on the window seemed to clear up. And the icy raindrops, something like my tears, melted away.
There were other businesses across the street. I was on Maine Avenue SW in Washington, D.C. inside the coffee shop.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost midnight. And it had started to rain again with a light drizzle. I gazed out the window, the rain picked up, pleating against the glass. I almost wanted to cry, like the sky, like the heavens, but I held my tears, until the man arrived.
A newspaper and steaming mug of coffee sat in front of me. My gaze wandered to the other side of the table. An empty space waiting for the man. I picked up the coffee and sipped it with extra cream and sugar. The steam warmed my nose like the man's breath of his lovely kisses should have but they didn't. All he gave me was cold hatred accusing me of something I didn't do. It was like being convicted and imprisoned for a crime I didn't commit. He held nothing against me.
I looked down at the newspaper. Something caught my eye. The pain struck deeper than the man's icy behavior. That's when the tears came, not on the window, or from the sky and heaven, but from me. I picked up the newspaper, looking at the front page.
Today's headlines...
It read a man involved in horrific car accident earlier this morning around 7:00 am. The man's car appeared tormented, wrapped around a tree, like a black, thick snake, sucking the life out it. I could see the man badly crushed in the driver's seat leaning on the stirring wheel.
It was the black wide-brimmed hat I remember.
The hat I gave him on his fifty-fifth birthday.
The brimmed hide his face but I knew who the man was.
My gaze wandered back to the empty seat in front in me.
Then, I knew why the man didn’t love me anymore.