Penny's From Heaven - @Short Story

Penny's From Heaven - Part #1

Penny's From Heaven

by sloanranger

Part #1

No one should be alone in their old age, Frank thought. How many times had he said that to himself - dozens? More like hundreds, likely.

Talked himself into marrying Kathleen thinking that way - that and the fact that she was a nice Catholic girl and three months pregnant with Wade.

Frank was eighty-seven and sitting in his son's Taurus, ruminating. He didn't want to get out of the car.

Feeling like a prisoner taking his last look at the outside, he told Wade he would take advantage of the beautiful day and walk around the grounds while his son went inside the administration building to sign the final papers.

Looking around, he could see the place was landscaped well: nice lawns, trees - a flower garden and benches everywhere for seating.

To the left and back of the parking lot a long greensward held a few of the residents playing croquet. One of the old men was arguing with an elderly lady.

Old man my arse, he thought; he looks younger than me.

For some reason he thought of Penny. Funny, it'd been awhile since he'd thought about Penny. Frank had used that line on her too, about growing old alone - trying to get her to turn down the scholarship she'd won at the Rhode Island School of Design - and marry him.

She had loved him - he knew she did - but she loved painting too. She was good at it and she wanted to get better. Penny had begged him to come to New England with her until she finished school but he was stubborn.

She had a way of looking up at him and smiling. "Penny for your thoughts?"

And the way she smelled - she always smelled good. She wore something called Evening In Paris when they were in school. Probably don't make that anymore, he mused. But by the time they were seniors she was using her mother's Chanel.

She was wearing it the last time Frank had seen her. The interior of his Chevy smelled of the scent for years afterwards.

He thought he'd never fall in love again - and he hadn't, really.

Kathleen was a good wife, might even have been better looking than Penny, he thought. And he'd loved his wife, but not in the same way - not like Penny. It was Penny's brown hair and clear green eyes that he was never able to get out of his mind.

They wrote for over a year and it was him that stopped writing first. After a while he heard she went to live in Europe - Italy, someone said.

Everyone Frank knew was married by then, no reason to think she'd ever be back. Next thing he knew he and Kathleen were married and his whole life had come and gone in a blur.

(To be continued).