“You never needed to.”
“Well, I do.”
“I love you, too, Silvia.” She stood up and smoothed her slacks, “Come on now. It’s been a lovely visit and I don’t want to let you go, but let’s get you home anyway, before I have you locked in my tower.”
We walked arm and arm back to the manor.
Later, on the way home, Oliver said, “I’m glad you had a nice visit.”
“It was the very best,” I answered honestly.
I knew I probably wouldn’t see Sandra again in this lifetime, but that was all right with both of us. Some people you meet and they’re your friend for a day. Some you meet and you never really know at all. And then there are those who get caught inside your soul and stay there forever. That was Sandra. We’d shared secrets, smiles and tears over a period of fifty two years. Sandra would always be a part of me and I would always be a part of her.
I could not have asked for a better friends or a better life, but there’s a nasty trick about living. It happens at its own pace and in its own way and you never, never know what’s coming next. So you keep running and running to keep up with it and most people get tired. Others don’t get tired. They just get overtaken by the road.
And that is what happened to us, I am afraid. It seemed like it wasn’t long after we arrived back at the wood that the aches and pains started in and Oliver and I began to dawdle. We ignored it for as long as we could. We did some travelling around Europe and did our best to keep throwing dirt at each other, but the truth was that sitting in bed together with a good book became more appealing than dashing about.
“Silvia,” He called to me the morning he turned eighty, “Come sit in the grass with me.”
“We might never be able to get up.”
He laughed over his shoulder. His hair was all salt and pepper, his face was aged, but his dark eyes were the same as ever, always smiling. “Please, Love? Take the chance? Alexander can help us up when he gets here if we get stuck.”
“He’ll throw out his back and be on the ground with us!”
Oliver grinned and held out his hand, “Come on, it’s my birthday! Give me my wish! Sit down with me and let’s watch the wind blow!”
I took his hand and sat beside him, under his arm, like we’d been doing for sixty-five years.
“I love you, Just Silvia,” He told me.
“I love you, too, Oliver,” I answered, “Happy birthday, Sweetheart.”
“It is happy. I still have you.”
So we sat. Alex and Lucy arrived shortly after and we celebrated the twin’s birthday quietly in the wood.
And before I knew it, all of us were old.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Five years later I was making pies. They were strawberry pies. I had an over eager strawberry patch that summer and only so many things I could do with them, so I had decided to make pies and was going to take them into town and give them to the Madison’s, who were a nice family that had too many children and not enough money for pies. There I was making the pies when I realised I was being watched. I looked over and saw Oliver grinning at me from the doorway.
“I love it when you look at me like that,” I returned the smile.
“You know something, Just Silvia?”
“I know a lot of things. More than you do, certainly.”
He chuckled, “Well, I don’t know if you know this or not but you are every bit as beautiful right now as you were the day I first laid eyes on you.”
“Are you going to hit me in the head with a ball?”
His eyes were twinkling, “Best shot I ever made. I’m serious, though, Sil. You’re just as beautiful as you were then. What a life. If I had a pecker that still worked when I wanted it to I’d steal you off to the back of the house and have my way with you.”
I giggled and tossed the strawberries with sugar in a bowl.
He was quiet, just staring at me.
“Oliver, you’re making me all fluttery.” I grinned.
“I always loved looking at you, you know that? It’s been the greatest joy of my life being able to look at you every single day.”
“Are you feeling sentimental?”
“Yes. Very.” He was quiet for a long time. When he spoke his voice was low, “Will you play a game with me? “
“What game?”
“You do what I say. I’d like it if you turned around.”
It was an old game and one we had not played for a very long time.
“You’ve gone gobstoppers, Old Man,” I told him.
“Please?” He asked.
I did.
“Now put your hands flat on the table.”
I did.
“Now close your eyes.”
I did.
I could hear him coming up slowly behind me. His arms wrapped around my middle and lifted my hands to my belly, holding them together beneath his own. He buried his face in my neck and breathed me in. For a moment, I was seventeen again, lost in ecstasy in the arms of the boy I was going to marry sooner than I thought.
“Marry me?” He whispered.
I nodded, “Yes, Sweetheart.”
I loved him still all those long years later with just the same passion I had the first time he'd asked me. He could still take me to that sacred place with only a touch.
We stood there together with our eyes closed in a place where age and time don’t exist, where there were no distances between us, in that place where we were safe and loved and could only get to with each other. It was the place we were always meant to be. We were together. We were home.
After a time, he spoke.
“Silvia,” He said softly, “I’m dying.”
It was like a brick to the face. My knees buckled. I tried to move, to turn around, but he held my arms with his hands and pulled me against him. Even in his eighties he was still so strong he could overpower me with no effort. He had never done that before. He had never restrained me, but right then he wouldn’t let me turn. He was whispering in my ear in calm, even voice, saying words I didn’t want to hear.
“Rubbish!” I told him.
“The pain I’ve been having…it’s cancer, Love, and it’s a bad.” He was holding me as if I were not even struggling.
“No,” I said quietly, “No. No…”
He just kept talking.
“No! No! No!” I shook my head, “No!”
He droned on.
“No! No! No!” I was trying to kick him in the shins now, trying to stomp on his feet. Anything to get away from those words. “I’m dying…it’s cancer, Love…” I wanted loose. I wanted to run away. I didn’t want to hear anything he had to tell me. I didn’t want to know. “Shut up!”
“I saw the pictures today. I’ve been telling you that I was visiting Alexander, but the truth is he was taking me to see doctors. The cancer’s in my liver and my kidneys. It’s been there awhile. I’ve only got one kidney working and it’s not doing so well. The cancer’s in my lungs, too. They showed me, Sil. It’s there. It’s a small amount, but…”
“Stop this, Oliver!” I demanded, “Shut your noise!”
“I can’t stop it! If I could I would! It’s time you knew! I’ve been living with this for weeks!” His voice was rising, “I don’t want to leave you. Not ever, but it doesn’t seem I’m going to have a choice. It’s gone too far!”
“They can cure cancer!” I yelled.
“They can, but not this! It’s too late! I’m stage four, Love!” He struggled against me now, keeping me from going wild, “If I accepted treatment I’ll be sicker than I would be without it and I’ll just die the same!”
“I want a second opinion!”
“That was the third, Silvia! It was the third opinion! Do you think Alexander would allow me to give up so quickly? They all said the same thing! I didn’t get help in time! I didn’t have the normal symptoms, not in time…” There was desperation in his tone, “I’m eighty-five years old! It’s just what it is, Sil! It’s what happens to everyone! We’re born, we grow old and then we cross the veil…”
“NO!” I screamed. Finally able to break free, I whirled on him and knocked him back with my fists. Strawberries flew off the table and scattered across the floor, the bowl shattered, “No goddammit! Are you listening to me, Oliver? I said NO!” I shoved him again. Not in sixty-eight years of marriage had I as much as raised my fist or, heaven forbid, actually hit him.