My Betty

She is eternally a lady. The creases of her dress will always be perfect. The curl of her hair will always lay just the way it should to catch the eye. She sits on a wrought-iron bench, her legs tucked neatly beneath her. Her hands are pressed in her lap the way a good girl’s should. Underneath her hand is a faded packet of love letters tied with a ribbon. Her eyes look out onto the abandoned park, silently calling for her lover.

Across town, the lights of the nursing home are going out. The old man stands at the window, his faded eyesight straining to see the statue in the park. It’s all he’s got left of his Betty anymore. The woman who waited for him for two years during the war, and another three when he let it all go to shit because he was broken. She waited, yes she did. And she was still waiting for him, up there in the sky.