Beauty from Pain(111)

She didn’t say anything about needing to go into town. “Did she say where she was going?”


Mrs. Porcelli hesitates. “She told me she was going home. I thought it was strange you weren’t going to the airport with her, but I didn’t think it was my place to question it.”


No. She’s wrong. That can’t be right.


“Laurelyn!” I run toward the bedroom and nothing seems out of place, but it’s too clean and in order. Laurelyn isn’t this organized. Something of hers is always tossed on the chair in the corner, but it’s free of clutter. I open the top drawer of the chest where she keeps her intimates and find it empty.


Please, don’t let her have left me.


I go to the closet and everything hanging there belongs to me.


Why have you done this, Laurelyn?


I take my phone out of my pocket and dial her number. I hear my personalized ringtone and I follow the sound. I find her phone next to her Martin on the coffee table in the living room. There’s an envelope lying next to it with my name written in her handwriting.


This is bad. Very bad.


I hold the envelope without breaking the seal. She’s gone and she left this ink on paper here in her place. These are her final words to me. I open it and remove the folded paper.


My beautiful Jack Henry,


This has been coming for three months and I’m no better prepared for it today than I was when we met. If anything, I’m less prepared. I didn’t love you the day I met you, or even a month later. But somewhere between hello and the goodbye I’m unable to bear, I fell desperately in love with you.


I know you don’t feel the same. That’s why I told you I was leaving tomorrow instead of today. I couldn’t bear to say goodbye and see how little you were affected by watching me walk out of your life forever. Because it is forever. I promised I wouldn’t contact you and I won’t.


You kept your promise to me. This has been the best three months of my life and I’ll never be able to top it. You made my every fantasy come true and that includes finding the love of my life. Now, it’s my turn to keep my promise.


I love you, Jack Henry, with every fiber of my being. Forever.


Laurelyn


Your American girl


No! I thought I had more time to tell her, but she’s gone. She’s really gone.


And then it strikes me that she might not be. Her plane might not have left. When she wrote the letter, she expected me to find it hours later.


I race toward the garage. I get into the Sunset and drive faster than what’s deemed safe toward the Wagga Wagga Airport.


I arrive in record time and don’t attempt to find a parking spot. I abandon my car at the front entrance. To hell with it. They can tow it.


I race toward the first open counter. “I need help. I need to find out if a plane leaving for …” I stop to think. Damn. Would she fly home from here? No, Wagga Wagga is too small to have a flight to LAX. She would have to connect in Sydney. “Sydney.”


She’s clearly annoyed by me. “Sir, we have several flights to Sydney every day.”


“It’s an emergency. Can you check to see if all of them have left?”


She sighs. “I’ll check for you, sir. Any particular carrier?”


“No.”


She’s in no hurry as she clicks her mouse, and I think she’s doing it to piss me off. “They’ve all left for today, sir.”


“What about returning flights to LAX out of Sydney?”


She sighs heavier. “I’ll have to check, sir.”


She clicks several times. “There are two flights to LAX today. One left at seven this morning and the other is scheduled to leave at three o’clock.”


Damn! That’s in two and a half hours. Even driving wide open in the Sunset, there’s no way I can make it to Sydney in that short amount of time.


I find my car still parked at the front where I left it. There’s a security guard standing behind it jotting down the plate number. He sees me coming his way. “Is this your car?”


“Yes.”


“You can’t leave it parked at the entrance, sir.”


I wave him off. “I’m leaving now.”