Five Minutes
The parking space was empty.
I stood on the sidewalk outside the rest stop bathroom with my hands still damp from the broken air dryer, staring at the spot where our silver SUV had been parked nine minutes earlier.
There was a dark oil stain on the concrete. A crushed paper cup. A pigeon pecking at a french fry.
No car.
He moved it, I thought. He went to get gas. He pulled around to the other side so he could be closer to the exit.
I walked to the end of the row and looked. I walked to the gas pumps. I walked to the far side of the building where the trucks park, their engines rumbling.
No silver SUV.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket.
I pulled it out. A text from Eric.
You need to learn not to keep people waiting.
I read it three times. The words didn’t change.
Then I laughed. Out loud. Standing alone in the middle of a highway rest stop parking lot with semi trucks roaring past on the interstate, I laughed so hard a man walking his dog turned to stare at me.
Because if there was one person on this earth who had no right to say those words to me, it was my husband.
Let me tell you about Eric and time.
Eric had been late to almost everything for sixteen years.
Not five minutes late. Not “sorry, traffic” late. Eric was a special kind of late. The kind that made other people change their plans.
On our second date, he showed up at the restaurant fifty minutes after we’d agreed to meet. I’d been sitting at the table alone, drinking water and pretending to read the menu while the waiter kept asking if I was ready to order. When Eric finally walked in, he was laughing, his hair still wet from a shower.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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