The cool mist of an autumn evening shower rested on the windshield. She held his hand with her right while steering with her left, which also clasped a tan leather glove. She looked at how the one held the other, how it recalled the two sand-hued cups they’d stacked together in her sink before heading out for the airport. How just that morning, she had sat with him at the bistro table in her tiny studio kitchen; sitting there, they’d looked across at each other, hand in hand, coffee mug to coffee mug. His and hers.

 

She’d hoped to share an evening pot of java, too, before he’d have to leave. But he had alerted her to the time, so off they’d run in a haste that threw off her balance.

 

Holding hands here in her car, then, she’d removed her glove to make the intimacy of this limited contact last…to ward off impending separation when the exit ramp became the Departures lane, which became the airline terminal, which would then become a vacated passenger seat and the “Exit to City” sign viewed through blurry, salt-stained vision. She tried scattering her thoughts like the beads of water flashing their fractious glow streetlamp after headlight——until she looked to her grip on the wheel. Her deadened stare lingered there, and she squeezed the glove as though she held her own hand.

 

Why not hold my own hand, she thought, when he would soon let go. And all that waited for her at home were two coffee-stained mugs sitting in a sink, empty, the rim of one still bearing the invisible print of his lips.

 

Pulling curbside, she stepped out and walked to the car’s rear to help retrieve his bags, where she met with him again.

 

“Okay, baby, see ya,” he said. “It won’t be as long this time.”

 

“Mm-hm.”

 

“What’s the matter? You’re okay, right?”

 

She said nothing.

 

He sucked his breath. “Okay, sorry, I know. I promise it won’t be like this much longer.”

 

The solitary ride home would feel just as she’d known it would. She knew it.

 

“Look,” he continued. “I’ve gotta check my bags now if they’re going to make this flight with me. Hey, I love you,” he said softly, holding her face in his hands, “and I’ll see you next month.”

 

When she returned to the driver’s seat, she bent over to inevitably watch him and his luggage ease through the sliding glass doors with the grace of the frequent traveler. To observe him disappear into the frantic masses before she would slam her door and stare back ahead toward the “Exit to City” sign.

 

As she strained her eyes to see this usual scene unfold, she was startled when his face appeared in the passenger window instead. Before she could register the break in routine, he had opened the door and plopped back down on the seat. With a slam of his door, he looked ahead, then into her eyes, then down at her bare hand. He clasped it.

 

“You know, I was thinking,” he said, sweeping his thumb gently back and forth over her knuckles. “I’d like to take you up on that cup a’ Joe after all.”