By: Michael Gigandet

That’s got to be her. Almost 20 years, 17 anyway, and here she is in Kroger’s baking aisle.

            Wonderment. Her go-to expression in unguarded moments as if everything that came into her line of vision required some modest but sincere effort to interpret although I don’t see anything mysterious about the cooking oils.

            She dropped out of school, moved away and married. Divorced now maybe?

We were a Serious Couple in college, everybody said so, and then we weren’t because I moved on. No harsh words over transgressions real or imagined; one day I woke up and became hard to find until I disappeared from her life with her wondering what happened.

            Maybe I just got what I wanted. I have my reasons for being who I was back then.

Argumentation:

            “I’m sorry about the way I treated you, but I wasn’t ready for that level of commitment. I never said I wanted to get married. My father got divorced seven times, my mother three. So…?”

Immaturity:

“I was young…immature.”

Ignorance:

“No one taught me what to do.”

If my father had stuck around would I have learned better dating skills even though he beat my mother?

Penitence:

            “Now that I’m the father of daughters I see clearly. I’ve been stoking their self-esteem since they were toddlers. They won’t settle for just any guy.”

            I’ve compensated for…things.

Pretext:

            “We were kids playing doctor. Just experimenting. We learned how not to act. We’re better for it. Better parents. Better everything.”                     

Regret:

            “If I had it to go over…I would’ve done everything correctly. You deserved better.”

If you earnestly regret your behavior, cringe over it, that means you’ve become a better person, doesn’t it? I’ve cringed so much I must be a saint.

            “Carrie?”  She turns and the only thing I can think to say is “Hi.” The lump in my throat is pulsating with my heart beat.

            “Do I know you?”

            I thought I was ready for something, but not that.

            “I’m Martin.” Had I changed that much? “From college.”

            A teenage girl approaches her. “Mommy?”

            It is immediately apparent. I’m sucking in air like I have a chest wound.

            “Excuse me,” the woman says. “I have to go.”

            The girl looks back as they walk away but only briefly, an afterthought.

            With the girl standing there, what could I have said? I must think about it. Maybe it was all for the best. Something.

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Michael Gigandet is a retired lawyer in Tennessee. His stories have appeared in Bending Genres, Quarencia Press, Great Weather for Media, Palm Sized Press, Syncopation Literary Journal and The Hong Kong Literary Journal. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize this year.