Love and Memories

Her eyes surrounded by a million little laugh lines, fall on him. They sat quietly in the kitchen, waiting for her to speak. She sighs softly, she feels nothing, a void where her heart had been. A heart that had beat for him once upon a time. He sits across from her, his warm hand grasping her frozen one as if it were a life line. She offers a weak smile as she stares at him. It hurts but, only because she'd been with him for so long. She was not a cruel person, she just couldn't do it anymore. 1

It had been like this for seven years and she was too old to live out the remainder of her life like this. Forty-two years of marriage and it was coming to this. He knew....but what he didn't know was she had already booked a ticket that had her flying at least a thousand miles away from him and she wasn't coming back. She wanted that passion back before she died, that happiness, that newness she felt when she had first met him. It would never be that way with him again, she felt that deep in her bones. 2

Finally, it was time to break the silence. "I don't love you anymore, William." a whisper, barely audible. He looks at her with a pain that would shatter the world if it were possible. "I didn't hear you....please, say it again." He had heard her clear as day, she knew. But, for his sake....she repeated her self. "I said, I don't love you anymore." He sucked in a hissing breath, never one to cry, he was a strong man. His hand tightened, clasping hers all the harder. 3

A brief smile fluttered across her mouth, a distant and forbidden memory. William had always had such self control, it was one of the reasons she had fallen in love with him. Her face hardened at the brief glimmer of hope she caught in his eye. She couldn't allow him hope. 4

"Listen to me now, please. I'm leaving, I've already bought the plane ticket. You can keep the house and the cars, I don't care. I have withdrawn all of the money from my savings. It should be more than enough to get by on. I want you to know, there is nothing you did or could have done to make me go or to get me to stay."5

And all of a sudden the weight of William's sixty-seven years came crashing down on him. He looked drained of all life, of hope. "When are you leaving?" Her eyes moved away from him and she stared intently at the kitchen table. "Saturday." He nodded, it was only three days from now. 6

When she looked up at him again, tears were streaming down his face. She stared, wide eyed...she had seen him cry twice in their time together. She didn't know what to do. She released his hand and stood up, he followed her movements. He reached out towards her and she hesitated. "I won't ask you to stay, Annie." he said. One could barely tell he was crying.7

That was her William, always a man of few words. She wrapped her arms around him, and allowed her self the selfish comfort of his arms one last time. Her mind drifted to happier times. The day he proposed, their wedding day in her father's back yard, their first child, a son. She remembered loving him but she couldn't feel it anymore. And just like that, with the wave of memories, the wall she had held in check shattered. She clung to him, and she cried.8

She cried, not because she was regretting her leaving but because....she remembered and that's all she had left to offer him.9