Beth Sorensen
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She stood on the bridge and waited. The fireworks ended hours ago and the masses had returned to their homes. The teenagers would still be texting from their rooms, lovers were long wrapped in the sheets of their beds, and parents were finished putting their young children to sleep. But she stood on the bridge and waited.
It wasn’t as hot as it was the last time she saw Andrew. It was a sweltering Fourth of July that year, the summer she turned sixteen. It had been hottest one on record. Her family escaped the miserable humidity of the city by making the two-hour trek to the beach house on the Chesapeake Bay. It was before cell phones and texting existed and the beach house left her feeling isolated from her friends. She looked upon each weekend with dread. That is, until she met Andrew.

But she stood on the bridge and waited as a light breeze brought relief to the hot night.
Andrew Lockner was seventeen. His father was a naval officer and Andrew’s family was spending the summer with his grandmother, who lived next door to the beach house. She remembered the first time they met. School was out for summer and she was wearing her favorite purple bikini, slathered in suntan oil. It was before anyone knew how bad tanning was for your health. She had poured herself a glass of iced tea and was sitting in her favorite beach chair reading a romance novel and sulking. She was sulking because she was going to miss Janine Field’s birthday party and her parents had refused to let her stay at the Richmond house alone. Andrew was playing fetch with one of the neighbor’s dogs when a slobbery tennis ball landed in her tea. She acted uppity and told him the beach was private property.

Her parents sold that beach house when they divorced. She had driven by it on the way to the bridge. It looked the same as it did the last time she stayed there. She noticed the for sale sign on a small patch of weeds that passed for a front yard. Maybe she would buy it, she thought. She could more than afford it. But for now, she stood on the bridge and waited, knowing it would soon be midnight.

It only took her two days to fall in love with him. He told her the following weekend he’d fallen in love with her the moment they met. She began to anticipate her family’s weekend trips with glee, begging her father to leave work early on Fridays and pleading to her mother to stay longer on Sundays. She remembered her excitement when her father announced they would spend the week leading up to the Fourth of July at the beach house. The first night of that week, she and Andrew sat on the beach and stared at the stars. They spoke of their hopes and dreams and made plans for their future. Nine days of happiness at the beach was her thought at the time.

It had been twenty years since that joy belonged to her. She was older now; too old for that kind of girlish joy. She lifted herself on the rail of the bridge, sat, and waited.

The next morning brought the news that broke her heart. Andrew’s father had been assigned to a new base. The day after Independence Day, Andrew and his family would leave for Panama. It was the only time in her life she cried in front of a man who wasn’t her father. It was the first time she had loved someone and he was being taken from her. Andrew promised her he’d come back for her as soon as he graduated. Even then, she knew he wouldn’t. She was young, but not naive.

She checked her watch and wondered if it was fast; then allowed her feet to dangle above the water. She didn’t remember the bridge being so small, but nevertheless she waited.

He had been her first love; her only love. They had never shared a bed together. Looking back she wished they had. On more than one occasion he’d made it clear that he wanted her. But she had resisted. If she had known then what she knew now she would have given herself to him. She would have done so willingly the first night he wanted her and loved him with total abandon. Every time she slept with a man, she wondered what it would have been like with Andrew.

She slid herself closer to the edge of the rail. The metal’s edge cut into the back of her legs and she didn’t want it to leave any marks. She sat on the bridge’s rail and waited for midnight.

The night before he left, they’d watched the fireworks from this bridge. He held her tight despite the heat and humidity that caused their skin to stick together. When the fireworks were over, she turned to him.

“I know you say it won’t happen, but if we ever lose touch, promise me when we are older we’ll meet back here on this bridge, on the Fourth of July after the fireworks, at midnight.”

“We won’t need to,” Andrew said. His voice resonated with the conviction of a teenager in love; one that is certain first love will last forever.

“Then promise we’ll do it. In, I don’t know, twenty years. If you’re right, it’ll be the easiest promise you ever have to keep.”

“Okay, then. I promise. Twenty years.”

***

 Her editor, Sam Hale, looked understanding, but somewhat shocked, as she explained why she was taking a few days off. She rarely took a vacation and never discussed her personal life, ever. He wouldn’t deny her, even if it meant they had to rerun one of her old columns in next weekend’s newspaper. But he knew her well enough to know she was at least two columns ahead of schedule and would leave a completed article on his desk the morning she left. And she did.

Sam had always liked her. The two had known each other for nearly three years. He’d often thought of asking her to dinner, but she was such a private person he wasn’t certain how she would respond. She had always liked Sam as well. She would never flirt with him or ask him out though. She liked her job at the paper and wanted to keep it. Column writing came easy to her; and it paid well too.

But now Sam raced through the night, trying to reach the bridge before midnight. The letter had arrived the day after she left, but he hadn’t opened it until he went into his office on the Fourth, to get caught up, just after lunch. When he accidentally opened the letter and read the well-worded correspondence he knew what he had to do. It was an eight hour drive, but if he left then, he might make it. She couldn’t be alone at midnight.

***

 It was midnight, and she was alone. Five more minutes, she thought. She would give it five more minutes and then she would let it be over. The waiting, the wondering, would be finished. But somehow, she already knew he wouldn’t come.
She gazed passed her feet into the water. It was then she saw the headlights of a car parking from the corner of her eye. The car stopped on the Main Street side of the bridge and the shadow of a body emerged from the vehicle. As the person walked toward her, even in the dark, she could tell it was a man. She flipped her feet back from the water side of the bridge and approached the oncoming person.

 “Sam? Why are you here?”

He silently handed her an open envelope. She retrieved a single sheet of paper and a newspaper clipping.

My Dearest Ginny,
If you’re reading this, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t live long enough
to meet you at the bridge. I thought of you often and hope you found
love and happiness. But if you haven’t, remember, it’s never too late to
begin.
Eternally yours,
Andrew

The clipping was his obituary with a post-it note across the front.
Ms. Madison,
My dad asked me to send this to you.
You must have been important to him.
Andrew Lockner, Jr.

She skimmed the obituary. He had died ten days earlier after a long battle with a brain tumor.  Sam put his arm around her waist as she read. He knew this news would break her heart, yet again.

She didn’t understand how or why Sam was there, but she was glad he had come. When she looked at him, tears streaming down her face, she realized that Andrew, even in death, was right. It was never too late to look for love.