No one in the town Kimberly Hayes had lived knew the man that visited her grave every day. He showed up at the grave site one day, before the grass planted by the grounds keepers sprouted, and continued to come visit the grave daily. The Sheriff got curious, and talked with the man, but wouldn't run him off, wouldn't tell anyone what the man had told him, and wouldn't let anyone bother the man. 'Just leave him be', he would say. Before summer ended, the man quit coming to the cemetery.

Jerry Anderson was a happily married man with two children. He had been married for seventeen years. He was forty five years old and had the luck in life to have four women with which he was genuinely in love. The first was his high school sweetheart. The second was a girl he worked with after dropping out of college. The third he married, and the fourth he had known for twenty four hours.

He was happily married, although his marriage had decayed somewhat over the years. He still loved his wife, as he did the other two, but Kimberly was special. He had met her while snow trapped the two of them in O'Hare airport in Chicago. They were standing next to each other when the snow delay was announced and met by accident when, in disgust at the announcement of the twelve hour delay, Jerry threw his suitcase down and knocked Kimberly to the ground.

In an instant rush of shame and horror at having knocked the young, and very pretty, lady to the ground, Jerry stumbled over his words trying to apologize and help her up at the same time. Due to his awkwardness, the two of them ended up in a pile in the middle of the airport concourse. Jerry was mortified. He sat there speechless and close to tears at his predicament when he heard the strangest thing.

Kimberly Hayes was laughing. She couldn't help herself. She was laughing uncontrollably. She didn't like being knocked to the ground and used as a landing cushion by this stranger, but his reaction to his predicament touched her in a special place. It was better than the Comedy Channel. When she calmed down enough, she put her hand on his shoulder and told him not to worry. He looked around at the touch, then their eyes met.

Sitting in the middle of the O'Hare concourse, surrounded by their jumbled luggage, they fell in love in an instant. She was half his age, and he was married, with children, but they fell in love. Jerry managed to gather their luggage, and they went to find a place to spend the layover time.

They started out in an airport bar, Kimberly flipping through a phone book, Jerry drinking a Bloody Mary. They talked. At first, it was small talk. Awkward, and stilted, neither wanted to admit openly that a spark had struck between them. When Jerry ordered his second drink, she joined him with a glass of wine. Soon they were immersed in a conversation that stretched from the beginning of known time, to the philosophy of an afterlife and the possibilities of life on other planets of the Solar System. Jerry told her of his life with his wife and children, and Kimberly told him of her broken marriage with an abusive spouse.

As the hours passed, neither noticed the clock. Before they knew it, the twelve hours were up, and they reluctantly prepared to return to the boarding area for their flight. Jerry paid the bill, Kimberly gathered their coats and luggage. Jerry hired a Red Cap to carry their bags while he and Kimberly followed, holding hands.

When they reached the boarding gate, they found the computer monitors blinking the message of another eight hour wait. As angry as they might have been at the further delay, each was relieved that there would be more time together. They had the Red Cap check their luggage, so with just his brief case they returned to the bar.

At one point during the walk back to the bar, Kimberly mentioned something to the effect of 'killing someone to be able to take a shower'. Jerry responded by offering to rent a room in the airport hotel so she could do so and she took him up on the offer, demanding to pay half. Plus, she insisted, he also could shower.

Without a thought to the possible consequences of their immediate destination, possibly responding to the inexorable draw toward each other, they soon found themselves in a room with a bathroom, a desk, a TV, and a bed. It wasn't long before Kimberly's voice lilted into the other room as she sang a melody while she showered. "La di da di da di, La di da di da di . . . "

It was a song from an old movie. It was a love song. It was a song Jerry was familiar with, and he hummed along with her as she sang. She couldn't hear him, and she didn't know he could hear her.

Shortly, she finished her shower, and with one of the hotel provided bathrobes, she wrapped her long blond hair with a towel, and left the bathroom, and Jerry headed in for his shower. In passing, they brushed by accident, and paused, each feeling the electricity that passed between them.

Not knowing what to do, Jerry broke the moment, and went into the bathroom, shutting the door. Kimberly watched him go, and continued to stand there, watching the door while behind it, she knew, Jerry was removing his clothes in preparation for his turn under the steaming nozzle.

He was twice her age, and she still felt a strong physical attraction to him, on top of the intellectual interest. He, on the other hand knew she had been born after he had voted in his first presidential election. And in spite of his marriage vows, although he felt she would literally kill him from exhaustion in bed, he felt a desire for her that was stronger than any desire he had felt in years. He wanted her body and her mind. Both of them knew it shouldn't happen.

While Jerry soaped and rinsed, the song she had been singing kept ringing in his head. Without realizing it, he began to sing it out loud, "You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh . . . " In the next room, she scarcely noticed it at first. Then, as Jerry forgot himself and began to sing in ernest, she stopped brushing her hair and listened, "A smile is just a smile. The fundamental things apply . . . "

Almost at the same time, each of them realized that the song was from a movie with a plot that fit their circumstances. A love story about a man and a woman who find each other in time of duress, and fall in love. But one of them is already committed to another person, and each of them make a sacrifice to the other for the greater good.

When Jerry finished his shower, and retreated from the steamy confines of the bathroom, he found Kimberly stretched out on the bed, still wearing the terry cloth bathrobe. Jerry had also not dressed, opting for the other provided bathrobe. He stood at the foot of the bed, taking in the vision of loveliness before him. She returned his gaze, memorizing every detail of his middle-aged face and figure.

She patted the bed beside her, and told him that she had called the airline ticket counter with instructions to call her at the number of the room at least an hour prior to their boarding call, and she continued, since they had some time to kill . . . He lay down next to her, and they fell into a full length embrace, their lips touching, tongues intertwined, bodies pressed together.

As much as he wanted to make love to this woman, Jerry couldn't. He had been married so long, he couldn't keep his wife, Sarah, out of his mind. While he was kissing, and being kissed, by Kimberly, Sarah was there as well. Kimberly caressed and fondled him in places that he, alone, had ever touched. Several times he began to respond and rise, and Sarah entered his mind and the effect was obvious, even when Kimberly took him into her mouth.

Kimberly raised herself slightly, and moved to snuggle under Jerry's arm. He tried to tell her that it wasn't her fault, but she silenced him with a finger on his lips followed by a long kiss. They lay there, like that, for a long time. Occasionally they would kiss, or fondle, or caress, but that was all. They were beyond words at that point, communicating with looks and touches.

At one point she raised up on an elbow and looked deeply into his eyes. "I once promised myself," she said, "that I would never get involved with a married man. But I can't help myself. I find myself so attracted to you I can't help myself. I know I can never have you, but I couldn't let the opportunity pass by."

He was returning her gaze, memorizing the color patterns in her eyes. "I know. If there were some way we could be together, you would have to beat me with a stick to keep me away from you." She looked at him while his fingers ran over the features of his face. He was wanting to remember every detail of her. Tears welled up in her eyes, and Jerry felt surprise as a tear ran down his cheek. When his parents were killed in an auto accident on his twentieth birthday, he didn't cry. But he was crying now.

The time passed slowly, but far too quickly. With a harsh ringing, the telephone in the room announced its presence with the call from the airlines. Boarding would begin in about an hour. It would take them ten minutes to make it to the boarding gate, and about that long to dress. They passed most of the remaining time locked in an embrace.

The flight was too short for either of them. At Kimberly's destination, Jerry remained on the plane, his flight continuing much further south. They had held hands during the entire flight and before she left the plane, she kissed him tenderly and caressing his cheek, told him that she would never forget him. "I love you. I know I can never have you, but that won't keep me from wanting you."

"I love you, too." He said. "If there were some way I could be with you, I would. I'll love you till the day I die."

"Me too, Jerry, until the day I die, I will spend the entire time wanting you." Then she was gone. He couldn't see, but she waited in the boarding area, watching the plane. She couldn't see him, but he watched through the window, hoping for just one more glance of her, to no avail.

By the time he got home, he had smiled, cried, and laughed, several times over, thinking of her and the time they had together. He ached for her, but responsibilities of home, family, and career kept him unable to do anything about it.

A month after he returned home from his business trip, Sarah announced that their marriage had gotten stale, and she packed up the kids in two days time, and returned to her parents home, several states away. At first Jerry was crushed, losing his family so suddenly. Then his depression changed to elation as he realized that he was free. Before Sarah had left the house, Jerry was planning how he and Kimberly could be together.

The week that Sarah left him happened to be the time for his annual physical check up. He decided to get it out of the way, so he could be sure of having no medical reason to be with Kimberly. The morning his physical started, he packed his car with camping gear. Kimberly and he had talked about each wanting to explore the western mountain ranges, and since he was close enough to retirement to duck out early, he planned to retire and go west with the young girl.

At the conclusion of all the tests, Jerry's doctor took him into his personal, inner office. He poured Jerry a stiff drink of brandy, and looking straight into Jerry's eyes, informed him of a type of fast spreading cancer, and the little chance of treatment, and the suddenness of finality. It eventually sunk into Jerry that he had a matter of months to live, probably less than two. With the news of that ricocheting around in his head, he returned to his empty house.

That evening, while trying to convince himself that he should forget his illness and find Kimberly, and enjoy what time he had left, his telephone rang. "Mr. Anderson, this is Melissa Hayes, and I thought you should know, Kimberly is dead." Jerry felt like he had been hit in the stomach with a freight train. "She talked of you for days, she cried. Then, last night, she went into her room, wrote out a note, and killed her self. In her note, she said that if she couldn't live with you, she wasn't going to live without you. I don't know what you did to her, but I wanted you to know, I think you are a son of a bitch." With that, the connection was severed.

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