At last, the coast is clear. I move from my vantage point in the park and cross the tiny road. Past the picnic table, between the towering pine trees, jag to the left a little and jump a puddle of water. Tentatively, my hand reaches out and grasps the rusted metal handle. It is cold to the touch and slightly wet.

Wet?

It has not rained here today.

I lift the heavy lid of the grill. Sure enough, there are remnants of something in the center. Pushing the lid back as far as it will go, I let it rest in place and take a closer look. Something has been burned there. I grasp the lone purple fragment peeking from under a pile of black ash. It looks like a piece of an envelope. A lavender envelope. There is writing on the survivor. "Robert," it says. That is all. I turn it over but there is nothing else.

Robert, Robert ...

Robert, you are breaking her heart.

She has waited for you and watched for you. She has been here, faithfully, every day. Today she came with a gift in her hands but you were not here to receive it. And now it lies in the bottom of the grill, its secrets forever consigned to the gods of fire and ash.

I remember the first time you met her here.

It was a Tuesday. I was newly in love then myself. I remember laughing out loud when I saw the two of you run into one another's arms. It reminded me so much of my own precious love, my own happiness. You held her so closely for such a long, long time.

I watched the two of you walk through the park hand in hand. You'd stop every few steps to exchange a kiss. Sometimes you'd explore the Chinese Gardens and the waterfall, smiling, nuzzling, holding each other as if there were no other considerations and you would always be together just that way.

Where are you, Robert?

What has happened to you?

Remember the first time you were late to meet her? She walked up and down the length of the garden several times, pacing restlessly, nervously. She watched the road, on tiptoe at times, straining to see through the trees in her vigil.

How happy she was when you appeared!

It made me happy, too. I thought perhaps your arrival was a favorable portend. I told myself all would be well. I told myself that the nagging doubts in my own mind would also be for naught.

We both breathed a sigh of relief, she and I, the moment you rounded the bend. It's hard to say what was going through her mind. But we worried that day for the first time. We also wondered. We felt divided, unsure.

Now I look down at the lavender paper in my hand, the edges seared black by flame. "Robert," it says. Her handwriting is simple, straightforward, with big, round letters and almost no slant. The pen barely skimmed over the envelope as she wrote your name. Her touch was light, sure, true.

Why are you missing, Robert?

Why has she tarried here, day after day, sitting silently in anxious anticipation, loyally awaiting her absent lover? Are you married to someone else? Is she? Or did she simply give her favors to you too readily, when you were not serious about wanting them? Was she a moment, a diversion, a fling? Was she nothing to you in the final analysis?

Your first failure to appear was agonizing.

She waited in the car at first, listening to the radio. You would be late again, she assumed. She was beginning to get accustomed to your lateness. I watched as she fidgeted with her hair, her makeup, her collar. Everything must be perfect for you.

That quest for perfection became as a mirror for me. I held my own love up to the mirror and examined it closely. It was as elusive and troubling by then as hers. I had not sought perfection in love or attempted to provide it. But her obsession with correcting every imperfection reminded me that my own love did suffer from one fatal flaw which could not be covered with powder, straightened with a comb, or folded in just the right manner.

Still, we waited. And hoped.

But we waited and hoped in vain.

Today she did not stay very long. There was no nervous anticipation. I think she hardly looked in the mirror at all. She listened to the radio for a few minutes, then got out of the car. I saw a purple envelope in her hand.

She closed her eyes and held the envelope to her nostrils, inhaling deeply. Checking, perhaps, to see if the faint smell of her perfume still lingered on the precious missive. She held it to her breast for a moment, covering it with both hands. Then she walked down to the water's edge and stood there with her back to me.

After a time she turned and walked back to the treeline, her shoes crunching slightly as she tread the carpet of pine cones and undergrowth. Straight to the grill she went, her face a stoney countenance.

She drove away soon thereafter.

Tenderly I lay the purple remnant of her love affair back in the grill and close the lid. Letting go is never easy. I understand completely how she feels. Why is there moisture on the handle? I hold my hand before my eyes and look at the traces of wetness that remain.

Could these be tears?

She did stand here for quite some time, her shoulders heaving, her head bowed. I lick them from my hand and swallow gratefully.

Why did you fly, Robert? No matter.

Drive on, girl, drive on.

Today we burned our bridges behind us.