Lightning cuts the wild sky and I feel my mind drift back. Who are we, Allie and I? Are we ancient ivy on a cypress tree, tendrils and branches intertwined so closely that we would both die if we were forced apart? Another bolt and the table beside me is lit enough to enable me to see a picture of Allie, the best one I have. I had it framed years ago in the hope that the glass would make it last for ever. I reach for it and hold it inches from my face. She was forty-one when it was taken, and she had never been more beautiful. There are so many things I want to ask her, but I know the picture won't answer, so I put it aside.
I finally stand and walk to my desk and turn on the lamp. This takes more effort than I think it will, and I am strained, so I do not return to the window seat. I sit down and spend a few minutes looking at the pictures on my desk. Family pictures, pictures of children and vacations. Pictures of Allie and me.
Since this seems to be a night of memories, I look for and find my wedding ring. It is in the top drawer, wrapped in tissue. I cannot wear it any more because my knuckles are swollen and my fingers lack for blood. I unwrap the tissue and find it unchanged. It is powerful-a symbol, a circle-and I know, I know, there could never have been another. I whisper aloud, "I am still yours, Allie, my queen, my timeless beauty. You are, and always have been, the best thing in my life."
It is eleven thirty and I look for the letter she wrote to me, the one I read when the mood strikes me. I find it where I last left it. I open it and my hands begin to tremble:
Dear Noah,
I write this letter by candlelight as you lie sleeping in the bedroom we have shared since the day we were married. I see the flame beside me and it reminds me of another fire from decades ago, with me in your soft clothes, and I knew then we would always be together, even though I wavered the following day. My heart had been captured by a southern poet, and I knew inside that it had always been yours. Who was I to question a love that rode on shooting stars and roared like crashing waves? For that is what it was between us then and that is what it is today.
I remember coming back to you the day after my mother left. I was so scared because I was sure you would never forgive me for leaving you. I was shaking as I got out of the car, but you took it all away with your smile. "How about some coffee?" was all you said. And you never brought it up again in all our years together.
Nor did you question me when I would leave and walk alone during the next few days. When I came in with tears in my eyes, you always knew whether I needed you to hold me or to just let me be. I don't know how but you did, and you made it easier for me. Later, when we went to the small chapel and exchanged our rings and made our vows, I looked into your eyes and knew I had made the right decision. More than that, I knew I was foolish for ever considering someone else. I have never wavered since.
We had a wonderful life together, and I think about it a lot now. I close my eyes sometimes and see you with speckles of grey in your hair, sitting on the porch and playing your guitar while little ones play and clap to the music you create. "You're a better father than you know," I tell you later, after the children are sleeping.
I love you for many things, especially your passions: love and poetry and fatherhood and friendship and beauty and nature. And I am glad you have taught the children these things, for I know their lives are better for it. They tell me how special you are to them, and it makes me feel like the luckiest woman alive.
You have taught me as well, and inspired me and supported me in my painting, and you will never know how much it has meant to me that you were always there, encouraging me. You understood my need for my own studio, my own space, and saw beyond the paint on my clothes and in my hair. I know it was not easy. It takes a man to do that, Noah, to live with something like that. And you have. For forty-five years now. Wonderful years.
You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together. You have something inside you, Noah, something beautiful and strong. Kindness, that's what I see when I look at you now, that's what everyone sees. Kindness.
I know you think me crazy for making us write our story before we finally leave our home, but I have my reasons and I thank you for your patience. I never told you why, but now I think it is time you knew. We have lived a lifetime most couples never know, and when I look at you I am frightened by the knowledge that all this will be ending soon. For we both know my prognosis. I worry more about you than I do about me, because I fear the pain I know you will go through. There are no words to express my sorrow for this.
I love you so deeply, so incredibly much, that I will find a way to come back to you despite my disease, I promise you that. And this is where the story comes in. When I am lost and lonely, read this story-just as you told it to the children-and know that in some way I will realize it's about us. And perhaps, just perhaps, we will find a way to be together again.
Please don't be angry with me on days I do not remember you- we both know they will come. Know that I will always love you, and no matter what happens, know that I have led the greatest life possible. My life with you.
Noah, wherever you are and whenever you read this, I love you. I love you deeply, my husband. You are, and always have been, my dream.
Allie
I put the letter aside, rise from my desk and find my slippers. I must sit to put them on. Then, standing, I cross the room and open my door. I peep down the hall and see Janice seated at the main desk which I must pass to get to Allie's room. At this hour I am not supposed to leave my room, and Janice is never one to bend the rules.
I wait to see if she will leave, but she does not and I grow impatient. I finally exit my room anyway, slow-shuffle, slide-the-right, slow-shuffle. It takes aeons to close the distance, but for some reason she does not see me approaching. I am a silent panther creeping through the jungle. In the end I am discovered, but I am not surprised. I stand before her.
"Noah," she says, "what are you doing?"
"I'm taking a walk," I say. "I can't sleep."
"You know you're not supposed to do this."
"I know." I don't move, though. I am determined.
"You're not really going for a walk, are you? You're going to see Allie."
"Yes," I answer.
"Noah, you know what happened the last time you saw her at night. You shouldn't be doing this."
"I miss her."
"I know you do, but I can't let you see her."
"It's our anniversary," I say. This is true. It is one year before gold. Forty-nine years today.
"I see." She looks away for a moment, and her voice becomes softer. I am surprised. She has never struck me as the sentimental type. "Noah, I've seen hundreds of couples struggle with grief, but I've never seen anyone handle it like you do. No one around here has ever seen anything like it." She pauses for just a moment and her eyes begin to fill with tears. "I try to think what it's like for you, how you keep going day after day, but I can't imagine it. I don't know how you do it. You even beat her disease sometimes. Even though the doctors don't understand it, we nurses do. It's love-it's as simple as that. It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen."
A lump has risen in my throat, and I am speechless.