Short story inspired from a Hopper's painting.

I wasn't able to return at home after his departure to China. The idea of being alone in a huge flat again terrified me so much at the moment that I decided to go in this automat at the fifty seven street and seven avenue of New York City, where we used to go with James. We came here since it opened in 1912. I thought that bars or cafés didn't bring out the same mood: these places used to (for me) just  simple enough and comfortable but coming here didn't even reduced my sorrow. I probably shouldn't have gone there as the fact that I pass through the door and feel the new stackness of the room fill my heart with loneliness and remember me that he was gone for a while. Inside, for the first time I see the room totally empty even if it was never full of people usually/to begin with, but it seems that the presence of James made the place less cold,ness I think so.After buying our coffee , we used to sit there, around this table, next to the door and the window, we could watching every persons who passed the automat and those who came into it. We imagined with James/with James we imagined their lives because we thought that those people are more than simple bodies which went somewhere but people who had a story and probably many problems. Tonight nobody came into the automat or then  maybe I didn't see ... Thinking about him made me feel like he is still front of/me feel like he was still with me but the reality isn't too as cheerful as those memories. James is a brillant officer of the New London navale base and he is devoted to his job and his nation so when his superior, captain Butter proposed/asked him to participate at an expedition in China for one years he didn't hesitate a seconde. He explain me that he must going away to permit Standard Oil, an American producing and refining comapany to deliver the oil and do her business in peace. We talked many times about his departure around this table, in that place and each time he justified his choice and stopped the conversation by "it's my duty". Since he came back after the World War where he lost his best friend, he didn't stop to talking about duty and honor. I don't know what happened there but it totally changed his mind without thinking about our relationship. I have never told him because it will be selfish and I know how his career count for him/what his career means to him and I wish be able to say the same. Now I am less and less supporting of his expedition even if he doesn't go there for fight but we never know what will happen. And currently I am in this automat, drinking a coffee that never tasted so bitter.