The bench felt bigger now. Now that it was just her. She could see where some young lovers long ago had carved their initials in its wood, now smoothed over with a red, weather worn, paint. So funny, all those years visiting this bench, she had never noticed it until now. The crudely carved heart around the initials had lost its bottom after multiple layers of paint, and it seemed to her — before long — the letters should just fall on out. But they didn’t. They hung suspended in its perimeter, effortlessly. Her leather glove sighed as she pulled it over the indention of the heart. A siren in the distance pulled her back to reality and she realized the birds had finished off the last of the bread she had thrown at them. The trees and the birds and bench, the whole park actually, seemed a little bigger now. Empty maybe, but probably not. There were people around, their frisbees glinting in the cool spring air, walking their dogs. All happy it seemed. Pulling her coat a little tighter, she proceeded to stand and retrieved her cane from the ground. She smiled a smile bordering on recognition as she passed a young couple on the way out of the park gates, noticing the lightness of their faces. Oh so effortlessly, she thought. Effortlessly.