She Used to Kiss Him Through the Car Window—Now I Park There Every Thursday
Every Thursday morning, like clockwork, I found myself sitting in the same spot at the local café, nursing a lukewarm cappuccino and scribbling half-thoughts into a journal I rarely finished. After leaving the chaos of Seattle, this sleepy coastal town in Oregon had become my quiet place. Nothing much happened here—and that was the point. The streets smelled like salt and fresh bread, the market opened late, and the townspeople minded their own business. It was exactly what I needed.
Still, I couldn’t help but notice them.
Every Thursday at nine, an aging silver Ford Crown Vic would pull up across the street. Behind the wheel sat an older man—always in a tweed blazer, white hair neatly combed back, posture stiff like he had somewhere important to be. But he never stepped out. He just waited, hands on the steering wheel, eyes scanning the sidewalk like he was watching for something precious.
And then she’d appear.
Graceful despite the cane, always in the same pink cardigan with a black tote swinging from her arm. Her lips were painted the faintest rose, her presence calm and unwavering. She’d lean into the driver’s window, kiss him—sometimes on the cheek, sometimes on the lips—and whisper something that made him grin like a man holding a secret. Then she’d straighten up and make her way into the market, as though that brief moment of tenderness hadn’t just made my entire week.
I never knew their names, never spoke a word to them. I just sat across the street pretending to journal, secretly waiting for that kiss. It made love feel timeless.
Then one Thursday, the Ford never came.
The absence hit me instantly. No glint of silver. No blinking hazards. I sat with my coffee growing cold, searching for a reason. Maybe they were running late. Maybe he had car trouble.
Then I saw her.
She was walking alone—slower than usual, cane tapping unevenly against the sidewalk. She paused where the car always waited, looking confused, scanning the street like something was missing. Her lips tightened, her eyes dimmed.
She stood there, motionless.
Without thinking, I crossed the street.
“Excuse me,” I said gently. “Do you need help?”
She turned to me, eyes shimmering. “He died on Monday,” she whispered, as though the sentence was something she’d practiced saying out loud.
I didn’t have a reply. I simply asked if I could walk her to the market. Just for that day.
She said yes. Her hand rested on my arm so lightly, like holding on too tightly might erase a memory.
Her name was Lillian. Eighty-six. Widowed once, and fifteen years ago, she met Frank—that Frank—at a library event. They never married. “Didn’t see the point,” she said with a soft chuckle. “But every Thursday, he drove me and waited like a gentleman.”
I asked what she used to whisper through the window.
“Oh, just told him what I planned to buy,” she smiled. “He always guessed something silly like fireworks or truffles.”
That day we shopped together. She taught me how to pick ripe plums and told me the butcher always forgot her name but never failed to call her “darlin’.” I thought it would be a one-time moment, something sweet to write about.
But the next Thursday, I showed up early. And I parked in Frank’s spot. Hazards blinking.
I can’t say why. Maybe it was habit. Maybe it was that look in her eyes. Maybe I just didn’t want their story to end that way.
When she saw the car, she laughed. “You even parked crooked,” she said. “Just like him.”
And so we fell into a new rhythm. It wasn’t the same—I wasn’t Frank, and there were no more window kisses—but it became something that belonged to us.
She shared stories—about dancing barefoot on a Boston rooftop, about almost moving to Paris before a man in uniform distracted her. She believed love wasn’t a constant; it was a rhythm. You just had to know when to join the song.
And I opened up too. Told her about leaving a dead-end job and a lifeless relationship. About how I’d forgotten what I liked or even who I was. She listened. She always listened.
“You’re grounded now,” she said one day, holding a bouquet of daisies. “You just didn’t notice it happen.”
She started calling me “kid,” even though I was thirty-three.
“I’ve got a grandson older than you,” she said once. “But he can’t pick a decent plum.”
One Thursday, I asked her why she never accepted a different ride. A cab. A neighbor. Why keep showing up to the same curb?
She shrugged. “We all wait for something familiar. Even when it’s gone.”
Soon I wasn’t just driving her to the market, but to her book club, her doctor appointments, and a diner with a jukebox that still played old songs if you gave it a good whack. I wasn’t a replacement for Frank. But I was there. And she let me be.
One afternoon, she handed me a folded note.
“If I forget, or if I go first,” she said, “give this to the man who parks for you.”
“To who?”
“To the one who comes next.”
I laughed nervously. “I don’t think there’s—”
“You don’t get to choose when someone parks for you,” she said, tapping my hand with her cane. “But when they do, notice it. And keep the hazards on.”
It’s been a year.
I still park at the market every Thursday, hazards blinking.
Some days, Lillian isn’t up for the trip, but I still stop by. I bring her groceries. I check in. I’ve met her grandson, Grant—works in tech, lives in Minneapolis. He blushes when she teases him for missing her birthday. We’ve gone on a few dates.
He once told me, “I haven’t seen her smile like this in years. You gave her something back.”
But I didn’t.
I just waited at the curb.
Now she waits for me.