The October winds fled through the corridors of the buildings surrounding the little municipal park and brought the trees to life. They whispered softly to one another through their leaves as Brandon crossed the street away from the subway entrance and entered the park. Since he and his wife had leased the downtown apartment three years ago, he’d made a ritual of leaving the subway tunnels and cutting through the park before walking home. Then, in the early days of their marriage, he couldn’t help but enjoy this green oasis in the desert of concrete as he passed through the shade of its trees. Now that she was dead, he rarely acknowledged his surroundings, and recognized no beauty in the trees.
Over the last few days, however, he did notice the young woman sitting on the iron bench in the center of the park. Though it was a chilly day, she wore no coat, only the same blue dress she’d worn day after day. Had she worn the dress to appear more attractive to him? The first time he’d noticed her, he only did so absently; the next time he nodded politely, because she’d been staring at him and smiling when he’d turned his head toward her. And every day after that, as he passed her on the sidewalk that divided the park, he would glance at her and nod—
Pretty, but not beautiful, her red hair and blue eyes glowed in the afternoon light. Her smile was a constant, if not flattering, invitation to him, and though they seemed to be approximately the same age, and he was now single, he never seriously considered assessing her interest by engaging her.
For months, the grief he felt over his wife’s death had held him, and hadn’t yet relinquished its hold. He’d lost his first love, his only love, the woman he’d thought he would share his life with forever—he’d lost her soft, round face and laughing brown eyes, her reassuring voice, the anniversaries, family gatherings, holidays, and vacations they were supposed to share together—he’d lost his future, his love, and losing something so precious had left him empty and uncaring.
He’d also isolated himself from his family and friends, a self-imposed solitude that concerned them, but he simply didn’t have the strength to overcome his admittedly self-indulgent sorrow.
But today the red-haired woman did more than just smile at him. Today, as he came near, she said distinctly, “Please, come sit with me.”
Brandon stared at her, slowing his pace, and shook himself enough from his abiding emotional hypnosis to reply. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t have the time today.”
“You don’t have a few minutes?” the woman said, her voice pleasant. She patted the empty part of the bench beside her. “I’d really like to talk to you.”
Brandon stopped on the sidewalk. Her smile never waned. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket, staring around himself for a moment as he searched for some polite way to extricate himself from her unwanted attention. Though the traffic sputtered and growled around the park, they were alone within its trees. Then he thought, if I tell her that my wife died recently she’ll understand and leave me alone.
So he self-consciously sat next to the young woman on the bench, his hands still in his coat pockets.
“I’m Deirdre.”
“Brandon.”
“I’ve seen you come up from the subway and walk across the park,” she said. “But you never stop to sit. Why?”
Though this seemed like an odd question to ask, Brandon shrugged and said, “It’s just a habit. I work at the National Museum and take the subway every morning. And every evening, I come back on the subway and pass through the park on my way to my apartment.”
“You should stop and enjoy yourself once in a while, Brandon.”
He didn’t respond to this statement. Instead he asked her, “Aren’t you cold?”
She glanced down at her light blue dress, her exposed arms and legs, then looked at him again, still smiling. “No, I’m not cold. Is it cold today?”
“I think it’s cold. The wind is blowing, too.”
“I feel warm.” She reached out suddenly and laid her hand on his arm; her touch indeed felt warm. Satisfied with this expression, she removed her hand and casually folded her arms. “I think the weather is lovely.”
Brandon, growing impatient to leave for his apartment, said, “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
“No.” She laughed. “That would be a silly thing to want to tell you. What I really wanted to say is that I’ve seen you walking through the park for several days, and each time I see you, you have a sad expression on your face. Why do you look so sad, Brandon?”
A moment passed while he considered his response. He could say nothing and leave, annoyed by the intrusion into his personal life, or he could politely lie to satisfy her curiosity. But he also felt an abiding need to remember his wife, and if talking about her to a stranger afforded him the opportunity—
“My wife died last October,” he said.
The woman’s blue eyes widened. “I’m so sorry.” She patted his arm sympathetically, like a mother comforting a sad child. “I’m so sorry, Brandon. What happened to her?”
Reliving his wife’s death wasn’t a pastime he would ever enthusiastically anticipate; but carrying the memory of it seemed like a burden heavy enough for him to want to have others share its weight. “A car accident.”
He turned his head away from her, scanning the trees but not really seeing them—all he saw was his wife’s face. “Ashley was a social worker. She was driving home from visiting a foster care family when another car crossed the median and hit her. The police told me that she’d died instantly. Maybe they were just being kind. She was a good person. She really cared about people.”
“I’m so sorry for you,” the woman said. “Oh, it’s no wonder you look so sad!”
Brandon turned back to her. “We met in college. I was studying Art History, she was studying Social Work, of course. I don’t know if it was love at first sight between us, but I do know that it was love after that. I loved her so much. My family loved her, my friends loved her. After we got our degrees we got married and started a life together. Everything in our lives was beautiful, the world was beautiful, and if we ever had any problems they never seemed too hard to solve. Ashley loved solving problems, for others, for us. She was so full of life.”
Brandon pulled his hands from his coat pockets and rubbed his eyes. He only cried now at night, alone in their bed, when the memory of her wouldn’t let him sleep.
“It sounds as if she was a wonderful woman.”
He nodded, at a loss for words. Then he said, the words falling from him past any censor he might have had for saving another person from being inundated by his grief, “She was the love of my life. I can’t imagine living my life without her, now. She was the most beautiful thing about my existence, she’d become the reason for everything I worked for, for everything I ever would work for. She was going to be the mother of our children, she was going to be the one I grew old with and loved forever. And then some bastard drove over the median and took her from me. Now I’m alone, and I have nothing left to live for. Why shouldn’t I look sad? Wouldn’t you look sad, too?”
For the first time since he’d noticed her, the woman lost her smile. Her blue eyes shone with suspended tears. “The other driver, the one who took your wife from you. What happened to the other driver?”
Brandon shook his head and offered a short, cynical laugh. “Dead. Burned alive in the accident. The police found liquor bottles under the seats. My wife was killed by a drunk driver, but what does it matter? That person is dead, too.”
“I’m so sorry for you, Brandon,” the woman said. “I’m just so sorry.”
“Listen,” he said, rising from the bench, “I’m sorry to have dumped all my painful memories on you. I know you were only trying to have a friendly conversation, but I’m not someone who can have friendly conversations right now. I’m a mess, my thoughts are a mess. I guess I just can’t seem to come to terms with my wife dying. Listen, I’m sorry, but I really have to go.”
When he was walking down the sidewalk again, he heard her say from behind him, her voice full of emotion, “I’m sorry, Brandon! I’m so sorry for you!”
But she was a stranger to him, and he didn’t look back.
#
The next evening, when he walked up the subway stairs, across the street, and into the park, he searched for her again to apologize for making a fool of himself—and for leaving all his angst and pain for her to carry for him, even though he felt better for having left it. It was wrong of him to do so, he knew, and he wished he hadn’t. But the red-haired woman wasn’t sitting on the bench that day. Apparently, his emotional outburst had chased her away. He was sorry for that, too. She’d seemed like a decent woman, a hopeful woman who only wanted to have a conversation with him.
As he reached the bench on which they’d sat the previous day, he stopped, sighing. He sat on the bench where he’d sat before, wishing she was there to hear his apology. Then he noticed the black stain on the metal where she’d sat, and reached over to touch the place with his fingers. Rubbing his fingertips together, he realized that the black stain had been made by ashes on the metal, as if someone had burned paper there and left the remains.
When Brandon sniffed his fingers curiously, he noted the unmistakable scent of sulfur.
—
Lawrence Buentello has published over 100 short stories in a variety of genres, and is a Pushcart Prize and Edgar Award nominee. His fiction can also be found in several short story collections. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Well–written and poignant. The ending is excellent and quietly hellish.