Melody comforting Mary at the dog shelter as she explain how she abandoned her only chance at love. Today's prompt is wavy. Last excerpt, Mary confesses that she told her true love to go away. Today, we find out the reason behind this momentous decision.
EXCERPT
Love appeared to be such a fleeting, rare commodity. “Why did you do that?”
“I often ask myself that, especially when I see elderly couple crossing the street holding hands. I think that could be us. We’d have grandchildren now to spoil. Instead, I fuss over these hounds.”
Melody covered Mary’s hand with her own. “The hounds need you.” It hurt to see her friend’s wavy gray hair falling into her tear-shrouded eyes. Curiosity wanted her to finish her story, but she wouldn’t ask.
Finishing off the water bottle, Mary slammed it against the table with vigor missing their clasped hands. “I was a fool, you see. My mother was a widow. My father died in the Korean conflict. All I ever heard was how hard it was to be a widow and how she never had a man to do for her. When I started to date Roy, she liked him until the time he enlisted. Then she had nothing good to say. All she did was predict doom and gloom. Hounded me day and night until I broke up with him.”
The woman sobbed violently burying her face in her hands. Melody knelt beside her friend and wrapped her arm around her shoulders as she grieved. Her cries lasted a few more minutes fading into hiccupping sobs. Mary sat up and managed a watery smile. “You’d think I’d be cried out by now. I keep thinking about the look on Roy’s face. I broke his heart. The only man I ever loved. Threw it on the ground and stomped on it. What good did it do me?”
It sounded like a rhetorical question and certainly one she couldn’t answer. Her benefactor was a Roy too and close to Mary’s age. No, it couldn’t be. How weird it would be living in the same town just miles away from each other.
Not getting an answer, she grasped Melody’s hands. “Promise me something.”
Her manner was so emphatic that Melody knew she dared not ignore the woman’s request. “Anything.” She meant the words. If she could possibly accomplish whatever Mary asked, then she’d do it.
Mary’s eyes glowed as she spoke. “Never give up on love. Too few people ever truly fall in love. Most think they do, but realized later, they were mistaken. Love is a grand adventure, not for the timid, but well worth taking. No matter what. My mother convinced me to give up on Roy because he could die and I’d end up a widow like her. It could have happened. If it did, I would have had the experience of being part of the grand adventure. Sure, I would have lost my soul mate, but for a brief part of my life, I would have truly loved wildly and generously. I gave it up to be safe.” Mary let go of Melody’s hands to gesture to the concrete brick walls.”
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