For the rest of the day he tried to contact Anna. He called her house, work, friends. He went to her favorite shops, their favorite places, hoping, nay praying, to find her there. To find her and ask her, why? Why had she left, what had he done wrong? His search was in vain.
Slowly, painfully, as time grew old, the days easing into weeks, weeks blending into months, months rolling together to a year, his love for Anna, though never fading, was gathered together in his heart and locked away in a special place where he would visit and briefly reminisce on occasion. Remembering the times they had, the love they shared and wonder. Wonder why she had left and how she was doing in her life.
Eventually, Greg found true love again, and married. Susan was a wonderful vivacious woman Greg met in the park one day while walking along the paths he and Anna once prowled in love and thinking of the many wonderful times they had shared together.
As time went on, Greg and Susan, and later family too, enjoyed their days together in the park. Greg would, some days, imagine he sees her, his first love Anna, in the park, at the subway platform, around town, watching him. Watching as if to see that he was all right, that she hadn't hurt him too much when she left and that his life had turned out well. But when he looks again, she is gone, departed like the image in a desert mirage that never really was.
His life was finally complete and as he had envisioned it would eventually be. A happy marriage, loving wife, two wonderful children, a good job and a comfortable home for them all to call their own. Still, occasionally, he felt Anna's presence. That she was there, somewhere, watching in the wings. The feelings come, but not nearly as often as in the past. When he does feel her presence and thinks he sees her, in the park, across the street or on a crowded subway platform, he imagines she is smiling, happy for him and for the way things turned out. And then he sinks back into the reality of his life in the present, with a silent kiss to that special place in his heart where her memory is saved for all of time.