She gripped the tattered paper. The sea breeze teased her hair, her gaze on the tide, the one that took her love so far away.
Her bare feet sank into the soft earth, another breath of briny air on her lips. The letter promised his return, neat block letters that spoke of love, devotion. It instructed her to wait on the shore, her face to be the first he viewed upon his return.
The hunched woman pulled her shawl close, her gnarled fingers twisted in the wooly fabric.
Everyday she’d come, waited. For fifty years, waited.
Hope her only companion.
©Laura L. Zimmerman
Photo cred Unsplash, Rachel Paprocki