The Second City

We were making the final descent into Chicago today when I thought of you with an intensity that branded your name deeper into my brain.

I remember that you like Chicago a lot.

Outside of the airport, I have never been to Chicago.

I am sure that I would like it. I have a pretty good idea that I would love it.

If you were there.

Here are some things that will never happen:

We will never walk the loop hand in hand.

We will never go down to the lake.

We will never wink at each other on the el, I while some downtown trader checks you out, you knowing that were the checkout to progress to anything stronger that "nice weather today, have a good one" I would casually clear my throat and nonverbally note that you are a taken woman. Taken by me, loved to pieces and guarded jealously.

If I ever experience anything of Chicago and get to know her, it will be alone or with someone else. And I know that I will walk whatever streets I eventually walk with the ghost of you and what might have been haunting me like a frozen specter.

Maybe I'll allow myself to go back to the fantasy. The timeless one you know about but you don't know the backstory of. This time it will be set in Chicago. The small house we buy on the edge of the city, me with the first book well under my belt and the second due the publisher in a month and on time, by golly. You doing whatever it is you have always wanted to do.

After a morning appointment, we've taken the kids kite-flying down at the lake. Then filled them up on local delicacies and sent them to bed. Good story in hand, they are asleep. I wonder who could concoct a good story out of whole cloth?

Then and only then do we light some candles, pop the champagne and celebrate what we've done today. We play the theme song of the recent nuclear wars that were our respective lives. You put the CD in, turn it on, turn and smile at me.

And as "Gimme Shelter" plays, we tell each other its all good from hereon in.