How the wind blew on that gray, blustery morning. I stood on the platform, train ticket clutched in frozen fingers with knuckles going white and a red jacket that blocked the wind but let in the cold.
The tension between us stuck and grew into horrible shapes. It was as though all this wind had been sent to blow it all away. Ah, but to no avail. I could see that the muscles in his jaw were clenched very tightly. He never so much as glanced in my direction, as if to see me were criminal. As though the sight of me was somehow shameful.
"You're married," I'd exclaimed.
"Yes," was all he said after the realization hit him, and that was the end of us.
In the faded light he looked old, so tired. It was heartbreaking to see broad shoulders like that hunch. I wanted to go over and put my hand on his back, maybe slip my arm through his, and look up into his face with wide eyes. But it wasn't my right. I had no claim to him.
I could see her in the ring that gleamed on his finger, the carefully ironed collar that peeped out of his coat. Her presence lingered in the scent of Cuir de Russie that had been rubbed into his skin from years of good-bye embraces. The lines around his mouth- his laugh-lines- belonged to her.
So I watched him board his train. I let him go back to her, his wife. I watched and shivered and wondered what could have been.
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