It’s been just over a year since she quit her job at six. Frankly it was the best decision she ever made for herself. The pension was substantial enough that she hadn’t met a need to find new work. Rather, she’d settled in to her life for the first time -- allowing herself to simply relax. Nothing had been the same after Bond’s death; and the impacts of it hit her harder than she could have ever anticipated. Now she was happy, living in a new flat just outside of London, with Felix coming to visit often enough that James had dubbed him his favorite, albeit only, uncle.
The adoption hadn’t really taken much thought. She was lonely, in no place to find love, and having a child of her own had always been out of the question. Yet, adoption somehow sprung into her mind as a perfect solution. To her surprise not only was she approved in record time, she was allowed to give a home to a child who was barely out of infancy; his mother a tragic victim of an auto accident, having no family of her own to speak of, and as per her last wishes, the child was adopted out to a single mother.
She and James took regular strolls through the park, him nestled safely in his pram, blue eyes staring in sharp wonderment as the clouds and birds passed above him. Despite his namesake, he was an incredibly well behaved child. Just over eight months and rarely a peep out of him; no tantrums and never keeping her up late into the night. She often found herself springing up from slumber and rushing over to his crib, terrified the silence could only mean the worst, only to find him peacefully sleeping, his over-sized cowboy teddy bear, (a gift from Felix,) watching over him. Routine had always been her way, not a single moment lived without at least some planning; scheduling meals and appointments no less than a week in advance ------ starting every morning with a cup of black coffee and an apple from her garden. Was it really any surprise to her then, that the one day she chose to deviate from the routine, the single solitary anomaly in her otherwise predictable and peaceful life would be this day?
She’d forgotten to bring in her paper from outside before the storm, and it had been left ruined and soaked; therefore rather than take James along his normal trek through the park, basking in the glorious fauna and flora of the tree’s shady canopy, she stood at a busy corner where two streets intersected just near the park’s entrance.The man inside the small newsstand, with its faded paint and flimsy racks was griping at her for paying in small change, and she was giving it right back to him that the condition of his offerings hardly deserved cover price at all. It was a heated exchange which kept her suitably distracted from the man who approached, benign enough, his gloved hand running over the displayed headlines proffered in a spinning rack just to her side. The silhouette of his hat disarmed whatever natural instinct she might have to pull the pram closer and give the stranger a dirty look, and by the time she finally had her purchase in hand, he was leaning over the pram, face obscured by both his hat and the pram’s own canopy. With indignation she reached out to smack him with the paper, blurting out her most venomous of obscene epithet, taking care even as she quickly pulled her son away from the man’s reach. But her entire body stilled when he glanced up; the world spinning and slipping around her as she felt her legs tremble with a ferocity they had not known since she received the call with the news of Bond’s demise. Familiar blue eyes met hers, piercing straight into her soul the way they always had, seeing past the walls and the hostility, making her feel stripped. Angry. Embarrassed. Like a young girl again. All the sudden her breath came out in a shaky stammer, her lungs stinging and desperate for the air she had unknowingly been depriving them of. She felt as though she was going to be sick, or perhaps she was just going mad, but there was no mistaking who stood before her. This was no cheap mimic. She would know him anywhere. At the handle of the pram, where she gripped so tightly her knuckles had begun to go ghost white, she let the paper float unabated to the ground, like fall’s last leaf, sweet and somber all at once. She tried to speak, but her throat had gone dry, voice cracking and barely above a whisper as she spoke the only word that would come. The only one she seemed capable of remembering as she stared at the ghost that always haunted her dreams, looking entirely real here now in the light of day.
❛ How ? ❜
The rest of the question was either too vast to specify, or too difficult to speak aloud, but she thought, perhaps, her heart wouldn’t beat a single second more until he answered. Until she heard his voice. Until he made her understand.









