You Eat a Bowl of Soup in the Corner Bakery on Michigan Avenue Where You Signed Your Divorce Papers Several Years Earlier

You Eat a Bowl of Soup in the Corner Bakery on Michigan Avenue Where You Signed Your Divorce Papers Several Years Earlier

You met first at the Starbucks near his office on Michigan Avenue, but it was too crowded, a jostle of business attire on a warm day, so you walked a block south to the Corner Bakery on Jackson. The Art Institute grounded the street as always, and you felt the weight of all those centuries of paint and ink and stone settling around you as you signed the papers, certain that you should be reading them more carefully than you were. And while you were signing your name, people on the other side of the street were taking pictures of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and American Gothic and Paris Street; Rainy Day.

But now it's easy to forget that anything else ever demanded your attention, that you ever sat here for any other reason but to warm up on a cold afternoon, your black gloves folded neatly on the table, mirroring the position of your hands. On that April day some years ago, you were wearing a blue and green dress that looked like a Chagall, and when you stepped out again onto the street, still feeling the pen gripped in your fingers, you were surprised that you didn't lift directly into the air, up past the buildings and into that bright spring sky that must somewhere meet a gilded frame. You're surprised that you aren't lifting still.