Afterwards
“When we are old, will we still love each other?”
“Of course, only more.”
They were sixteen when they had had that conversation,
laying in the sand dunes, under the stars, high on life. Now, some sixty-odd
years later, they held hands against her life’s setting sun and she asked him
again.
He looked over at her. Her eyes were still roaming and sparkling
and as curious as they had been at birth. His friend. His confident. Later, his
lover, his love. His wife. Mother of his children, grandmother of their
children. He briefly wondered how much more wonderful could a person be before
answering,
“Of course, only more.”
Despite the enormous pressure of the pain from all corners
of her body, she grinned, wildly and openly. Laughing hurt, but smiles could be
a good measure of their time. One more smile. He always had that to go for.
“Darling, what do you think will happen. Afterwards?”
He looked out over the fields stretching past their bedroom
window. He thought of his return to the world out there, alone. Though this
room had been stifling at times during the past weeks, it was their last space
together, their comfort, their chamber of secrets. Yes, it was also the end of
her life, but he took great comfort in the fact it was he and he alone who was
passing her on. No doctors, no smiling strangers.
“You will wait for me in a place where, when I go, I will
know exactly where to find you.”
“You romantic, you.” Another smile.
“No? Then tell me, where are you going?”
“Nowhere. I’ll stay and haunt the house. I’ll be in the
teacups and the bathroom taps and the pots in the shed.”
He laughed. “Still nagging me no doubt?”
The last smile. “Of course, only more.”
