Martin could still hear her voice on the phone, and three words which would turn his life upside down.

“Let’s do lunch.”

Afterward Martin seldom returned to Moab.  Eventually the old wound scarred over.  Partners came and went, each leaving their own unique remorse – yet none could rival the intensity of that noon rendezvous with Kristine. 

Waiting at a traffic signal decades later, he recognized the café where they had met. With a sudden gut punch the self-doubt came back, crushing him into the car seat.

How did the two of them end up there? 

Martin married early, to the wrong person it turned out.  Later Kris came into his life, and the attraction was instant.  At first they circled each other as friends.  Kris married too, and there were children. Still they drew together.

Lunch was always a thing when business brought him to town, and it was at Moab’s bistros where the ember burned into flame. The last time she must have thought they were going to his hotel room.  As did he.  But he couldn’t make the ask, as helpless as Sergey Ivanovitch in Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.” 

So Martin let go of Kris before it could start, when he desperately wanted her.

He beat himself up over the years.  Why didn’t he follow through that day? It was easy to tell himself that two families were on the line. But that wasn’t why.

“Coward. Fool,” he thought, clenching his jaw at a car passing through the intersection. 

Self-forgiveness came later, and he made the most of the rest of his life.  In time, the little café and the love lost were both forgotten.

But now the restaurant was across the street.

What of Kris?  She was still married to Teddy.  It was hard for Martin not to be envious of Teddy. The man who got to live 𝙝𝙞𝙨 dream.

The light changed.  Martin pulled the car into the parking lot and walked in, greeted by the scent of coffee and pho.  The place had been remodeled, probably more than once. Fading pastel-colored frescoes of local arches peppered the walls, the chipped and smeared paint hinting of past customers and forgotten stories.  Near the entrance was a rendition of Delicate Arch, one of the archetypal features in the nearby park.  A table by the window beckoned, just as before. But today he was alone.

Last time he ordered love and it came unknowingly with a dessert of regret.  The entrée came as a look in her eyes – and the chaser followed from the memory of that look.

All these years he tried to bury grief under a mountain of happiness.  But here he was, with the weight of what might have been, and the knowledge that it had been in his grasp.

Martin glanced through tears at the laminated page of food listings.

The waiter came over. He didn’t seem to notice the traces on Martin’s cheeks.

“Have you decided yet?”

Yes. I’m not going to order what I got last time.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, it was 25 years ago.  It’s not on the menu today – not that it was then either.”

The waiter looked puzzled but said nothing.

“Sometimes we ask the universe for our desire, and turn away because we think we don’t deserve it.”

“Just pick something for me. I’ve decided I’m going to enjoy whatever you bring.”

The food arrived, and Martin ate mechanically.  He paid, yet could not gather himself to leave.  This would be his last time here – the loop had closed.  In a few years he would be gone, and with him the heartache. 

He thought of the partners who came after Kris, after divorcing the wife with whom he had stayed faithful.  The women who followed colored his life with a collection of memories – wondrous and woeful. Martin realized that he had loved each in turn – in spite of the ghosts of this place.

The café’s front door drew his gaze.  Today it had a flippable sign, reading “closed” from this side. Above the frame was a faded painting of Broken Arch.

He remembered the feeling of despair, stumbling from her last cold hug past that threshold, out onto the street.  Now he would cross through that door one more time.

The sun shone bright outside, light spilling through the windows – in contrast to the cool shadows within.  It was time to leave.  To embrace the present and let go of the past. Yet he didn’t move.

Martin glanced across the table and saw Kris sitting there – still young and beautiful.  He said quietly, “Yes, we did lunch.  Maybe you don’t even remember.  But it was worth it.  The gift that came and left me here made its way back.  And unlike my chance with you, I was ready for it.”

“I hope it found you again as well.”

She nodded gently at him, with love in her eyes as on that day long ago.

He stood up and walked out, turning toward Little Arch and the sun.  A hot breeze hit his face, and he smiled.

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