Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

A deep sigh took his breath away as completely as a punch in the stomach. More than anything he missed her simple presence. Just being in the same room with her and hearing her talk, listening to her enthusiasm over a book she had read or the taste of a pastry she’d made from a magazine recipe. She was so wide in her interests and so rich in her passions that he felt humble and a little naive. He’d always believed his mother had ruined him for strong, knowing women before she had gone, but he had been wrong. There was something special about Vicky, and now, God help him, now she wouldn’t even see him, wouldn’t even return his calls. She even managed to be out of the office when he made his coffee deliveries to her building.

Gene crossed to the other side of the bridge, went down the embankment and off the main trail, taking the muddy path that snaked through the trees on the north side of the river. He lost thought of her for a few minutes as he worked his way between the puddles and dirty snow patches, making a game of not getting his shoes dirty. He succeeded fairly well until he suddenly heard her voice, as clearly as if she were walking behind him.

“You’re twenty-seven and I’m forty-five. That’s just too much of a difference. I didn’t think it was at first, but then I didn’t think things would go this far. We, I mean I, made a mistake. Let’s just be thankful for what we had and go on.”

This was her phone voice, words she’d told him after finally returning three days’ worth of unanswered messages. She’d shown some concern about their differences in education, but seemed most concerned about their ages. He had thought that it would pass, that she would come to believe how little it mattered to him, but it had blown up in his face.

Gene came to a broad open space, a meadow with a large pond. Even though it was well above freezing, the pond was covered with ice and the ice was littered with branches and large stones. The mountains, the front range of the Rockies, rose up in the distance behind the pond. He walked over to one of the pair of picnic tables along the pond’s east bank and arranged himself so he could look out at the pond and the mountains. The sun was surprisingly low, already prepared to slide behind the mountains and bring on the winter night.

He had only dated her for a month. She had flirted with him mildly for six months, always smiling and polite, never condescending. He had decided finally to ask her out when he sensed that she was attracted to him, that her jokes and banter were ways of extending their brief conversations when he made his weekly stop to service the office coffee station. He knew she’d been surprised at his request that Friday to meet her for a beer after work, too surprised to do anything but laugh and shake her finger and walk away. But then she had somehow managed to get his phone number and had called him and arranged a date, saying she didn’t want any gossip around the office. She’d been that forward, and now she wouldn’t even talk to him.

He tried to think of her arguments, what she’d said that last time, after their last dinner together.

“I’m almost as old as your mother.”

“You’re nothing like my mother. She doesn’t know how to French kiss,” he’d replied.

“It’s not funny. I’ll be going through menopause any time now. Maybe I am right now. Maybe that’s why I’m acting crazy.” She said this with tears in her eyes. “You don’t even know what menopause is.”

“I know what it is. And it doesn’t matter. I’ll help you through it.”

“Oh God, you’re so naive. You don’t know what life does to you.”

“I’m willing to find out.”

“Don’t you see, when you’re my age, I’ll be an old woman. You’ll want someone younger for sure. Even if we lasted that long.” She shook her head slowly, looking right through him. “It just won’t work.”

That was the last time he saw her. She left his car and went into her house and closed the door and then let his phone messages pile up on her machine without answering even one. It was like his mother, leaving him; leaving him and never coming back.

Gene heard the low barking of a dog and turned to see a black mongrel go skittering out onto the ice in pursuit of a bright orange Frisbee. The dog looked like it had Lab in it and was old and shaggy-looking. What surprised Gene was that the person the dog returned the Frisbee to was not some similarly shaggy college student but a short, gray-haired woman. She took the disc from the dog and threw it again. As the dog took off, the woman walked on up the trail that went around the pond from the south side. She had a cane or a walking stick but still moved along at a brisk pace.