Flash Fiction: 9

With a sigh of relief, Mary finished her last and final day of working with the kids at the local elementary school. Twenty years of glue and crayons are winding down to this last washing of the hands and hanging of the apron. Then with a ring of the bell, followed by hugs and well wishes it was over.

Lucia walked in just as the last kid left. She has been there for eleven of Mary’s twenty years. They know each other well and dress almost exactly alike. “Let’s do this,” she said.

“Let’s go then.”

They already had an ice chest with two bottles of La Marca Prosecco waiting in Lucia’s car.

At the park they sat by the lake and poured out a couple of glasses.

“Congrats, mija.”

“Gracias. This is it.”

Mary was leaving the city. The country. With no real reason but to, “live somewhere else.”

No matter what Mary did in her life she was never able to find that a constant partner. Woman or man.

She was never unhappy and actually, in every practical sense, has lived a decent and good life.

“To Peru,” toasted two American born Mexican descendants.

Mary is going to head south, “just to see what happens.”

They both sat in a sort of lukewarm happiness and told a few stories. They said their good byes and promised to write.

Then just like that, like with every other uneventful moment in Mary’s life, they parted ways.

In Peru. Mary writes to Lucia once a month. For a few years they write each other till it slowly fades away.

A decade passes, she still waits to see if Lucia will follow.

The Andes watch over her.