It was ten at night when they parked Olie May. He’d arranged to get the last flight. It seemed minutes ago that she stood there with the pinwheel in her hand wearing the summer smile. Now they were saying goodbye.
“Flight twelve thirty-nine to San Antonio is now boarding all passengers,” said the speaker.
She opened her arms to release him. He felt as if he were being ripped from a Siamese twin. He touched her face. Then he kissed her lips and backed away slowly to the jetway entrance. She came forward as if tethered to him twenty feet away. He eased into the current of the boarding and just before the bend, looked back. She stood as close as she could with her hand raised and a pensive look of untold dramas on her beautiful face. He raised his hand and smiled, backing, till the bridge wall took her place.
He rolled up his jacket and stuffed it under his head against the window. He closed his eyes, his brain riveted on Holly Marie driving Olie May at seventy-five back to Kiowa in the dark, and a good chunk of it on crooked roads. First, he thanked God for the blessing of meeting her and then he asked Him to please keep her safe. He asked for His guidance in what to do about this impossible thing that had grown and deepened, giving him a reason to want to be alive.