With smokestacks puffing gray steam, wheels laboriously turning an inch at a time, then picking up speed, the mournful whistle sounds echoing down the tracks, the last train from New Orleans pulled out of the station. Within minutes all lights inside the depot diminished, and I stood alone staring into the midnight blue.
Jeff wasn't on the train. Once again, he lied about coming home. I told myself he had missed the last train from New Orleans, but I knew better. He wasn't coming. We wouldn't hear from him again, at least not until he needed something from his mother or me.
She would be heartbroken again. This has happened before. He calls her, promising that he is coming home for good this time. Sometimes he made it home but never for good. Most of the time she would wire him money to come home and we wouldn't hear from him for months.
Jeff wasn't a kid. In his early forties, he was old enough to know right from wrong, good from bad, and the pain he causes his mother, whom he swore he loved more than anything in this world including me.
Yes, he was my only love. I can't remember ever not loving him. I fell in love with him in Kindergarten. In high school, he thought of me as his best friend, and I continued to love him through all his dalliances including a few true romances. I was there to listen to him reveal more than I wanted to hear. But that is what next-door neighbors are for, to be best friends.
When Jeff went to Tulane, his mother and I eagerly anticipated his letters, few though they were. His visits home during extended holidays were joyous. He regaled us with amusing and sometimes fascinating stories about New Orleans and school activities. We sat wide-eyed and interested in every detail.
When the war came, the big one, and he enlisted, we were frightened. His airmail letters from Europe were few and far between but filled with hope that he would come back to us soon.
"When I get back after this damned war, I'll never leave either of you again", he promised.
Those few words thrilled us and gave us hope he would come home. It was our combined dream. And home he came, after a brief stay in New York. He didn't come home alone. He brought a bride, a New Yorker who was the sister of one of his Army buddies. The buddy was killed in action and Jeff went to see his family. A courtesy call, he told us, and it was love at first sight when she opened the door.
The marriage lasted 11 months. She missed New York. A little Alabama town was not to her liking, at least that's what Jeff told us, but I think it was because she learned that Jeff was having an affair with one of the town's looser women. Magda was not exactly a woman of the evening, but she came damned close. She was known as easy.
After the divorce, Jeff took advantage of the GI Bill and went back to Tulane. Magda followed him and was back home within three months. His academic schedule left no time for her, she told everyone, and we all pretended to believe her.
My life continued with no major changes. I worked for the local gas company, dated, enjoyed time with good friends, and kept an eye on Jeff's mother as her health declined.
He knew his mother was getting on in years, that she could be gone in a matter of months, he called promised he would be home soon. "I'm coming home for good this time."
I helped her get his room ready. We aired it out, bought new curtains, linens for the bed, and painted the desk. We were excited, even though I had doubts because of his previous actions. I am sure she did also. We never voiced them, just talked about when he was home. He could fix up the landscaping in the yard; paint the front porch and the garage. There were so many things needing a man's touch.
Early one morning, I heard the phone ringing next door, then a scream. I grabbed a robe, ran out the door and down the steps, tying the belt as I crossed onto their house. When I entered, she was standing by the phone table, the receiver still clutched in her hand. She didn't have to say a word. I knew by the tears welling in her eyes, slowly falling on her wrinkled cheeks that Jeff would finally be coming home for good.
I was with the hearse when they got his coffin off the last train from New Orleans.
The End!
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