Day 86.

When he left, she needed a moment alone with her thoughts, with the table, with the restaurant. She looked around the room, studying everything. Although it had changed a lot over the years, some things stayed the same. The paintings and photos over the booths have been in their spots since she was a little girl. Old friends now - an old man sitting on the lip of a fountain, a little girl with a floppy hat riding a banana seat bike, a vineyard on a mountainside, a coast with hundreds of colorful homes built right into the cliffside, family portraits of people who died generations ago. The tables had been refinished some years ago. What used to be light colored wood (maple, she always assumed) was now dark brown,  "espresso", they called it. What used to be a carryout counter loaded with all sorts of gourmet pies was now a long bar. That was certainly the biggest change. But everything else was exactly as it had always been. 2 rows of 8 tables and 1 row of 6 booths (the nice rounded ones).

She reflected that she sat at this exact table every 1st Monday of every month every year for the last 10 years. That's 120 times here alone, waiting for, hoping for a ghost. She decided that this would be the last time. She needed to do one thing before she said goodbye to the chicken parmigiana, the chocolate cake, the table, the restaurant. And him. 

She needed to sit in his seat, see things from his side of the table, from his perspective, to feel his long-faded energy in the place where she last saw him.