A shiver like a familiar touch spreads across Charles’ shoulder — in the place where she had always touched him. He glances right, and the space beside him on the bed is empty. Still empty. He takes a breath, slow and deep, fills his chest.
His son says, closing the bedroom door behind him, “Goodnight, father.” He pauses. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
In the morning.
He nods to his son. Somehow already knowing.
Alone, now, in the room they had shared, he sits up — his arms frail and quivering under him.
He says to the emptiness of the room, “I feel you.” His voice is no more than a rough whisper, weighed with a longing borne of too much time spent on his own. Without her. “I’m here, Rosalynn, dear… I’m here.”
He scans the room, searching for her. She does not appear.
Through the patio door a moonlit glow washes over him, suffusing the room, gleaming off the glass of the clock on the wall. The clock he had made for her. Its bells ring, soft and soothing, calling him to a place, to a time he remembers from long ago.
Charles closes his eyes and basks in the moon-beam light, in the gentle sounding of the bells.
…
He opens his eyes. Rapt by the light outside, he moves, slipping slowly off the bed, his withered steps not always steady, not always sure. The crick in his hip flames for a moment, almost as if a reminder of the pain he has willingly, happily endured, biding his time. Waiting.
For her.
He opens the patio door and steps out. Steps again. And again.
And in the span of a breath, he’s at the park. Their park — where they had been young and had first met. The lawn is wet and his feet squish and sink into the muddied grass, but by some sort of miracle he manages not to slip as he hobbles towards the bench. The bench where they had sat, where they had talked, where those first buds of knowing had bloomed between them. He lolls himself down, pressing the curve of his back against the seatback. He huffs for a moment, catching soft breaths, fading breaths.
The light of the full moon glistens atop the water, painting dazzling white streaks across the rippling black canvas.
Sitting in the quiet, Charles stares for a moment; he takes in all the sounds of nothing as they play in the background. He is alone here. Alone and waiting.
Then, as if pouring out from the white streaks of moonlight dancing across the lake, he hears a symphony’s song. It begins as a hum of strings and wind but grows melodically; a rich accompaniment of brass merges with the strings and wind, crescendoing into an orchestral effect so brilliant he cannot help but to stand.
A pulling sensation tugs at the fabric of the black suit he is now wearing. And, led by the symphonious sounds, he lets himself be lulled toward the lakeshore. He bends over, peering into the water, into that shining bright white. It is not his face he sees. It is hers.
He does not permit himself to cry, though tears well and swell in his eyes. He will not cry. “It’s all in your head, Charles,” he says to himself. “Yes — Yes, that’s right. All in your head.”
He closes his eyes, resides in the darkness for the span of a few strung strings. When he opens his eyes again, he sees she’s still there. She says nothing — but her face says it all. Her tells, which he had come to know well during their lifetime together, give everything away. Just as they always had. The quiver at the edges of her eyes. The slight parting of her lips. The faintest tilt of her head to the left.
Come, her tells seem to say. Come and find me. Charles, find me.
He does not hesitate. He steps down into the lake; the water parts like curtain veils before him. He expects to feel wet, to be swallowed by the water. But no. No, he’s dry. Dry and walking now across a dance floor. Couples twirl and dance around him, lovers caught in the melody of a song so impossibly beautiful, so impossibly elegant as it suffuses the grand golden ballroom Charles finds himself in. Calming. Until he remembers…
I must find her. My dear Rosalynn.
He thinks he sees her. There! She was just there, twirling so close he could have almost reached for her. He does, and his hand falls through the empty air.
She isn’t there. Not anymore.
He starts across the dance floor, minding the dancers, minding his steps — each one stronger than the last, sturdier, more confident. Bolder. He passes by a wall adorned with mirrors, all framed in gold, resplendent with rubies and emeralds, glittering in the amorous chandelier light. His reflection changes, though he does not notice. His posture straightens, taller, leaner. The thin white wisps atop his head become richly dark curls, thick and tousled and tumbling just past the edge of his broadened jaw. The milky haze coating his eyes dissipates, replaced by a youthful forest-green gleam as he scours the dance floor; his mind sharper now than it had been moments before, more focused than ever. On Rosalynn.
Where are you, love? Where?
This way and that way he wanders; a maze of bodies surround him, all stepping in perfect harmony, in time with the beat of a song so familiar it is nearly on the precipice of his remembering.
And then, with a spin… she’s there.
Swaying in an open space on the dance floor, she’s garbed in a gown of tulle and white. Her wedding gown. A wonder, she is, to behold. Here and real and wholly his. At last, my sweet Rosalynn. At last…
She waits for him, alight in a glow such as only her own beauty could equal. Her brown eyes shine, flecked with amber flames; hers is an enveloping gaze, one which wraps its way around Charles as he nears, piercing into his soul and holding it — holding him — firm and warm and dear in an embrace sewn from all the love and joy and laughter of a lifetime lived happily together. She proffers her cheek. He steps to her, pulls her close with arms strong and with no trace of their former quivering. Charles kisses her cheek, smiling as his wife’s face blossoms sunset red.
They dance. Slow at first, recalling the placement of hands, the pattern of steps they once knew. With time and new familiarity, their movements find their vigor. A surety shows in the confidence of their steps in time with the beating of their hearts, of the strange, familiar song carrying them across the dance floor. A song Charles remembers now, though he’s never before heard.
The music slows, as do their steps, and time all but ceases to pass. She leans in, rests her head on his shoulder. He can refrain, now, no longer. Charles cries. He lets the welled-up tears fall. And they fall. And they fall. And they fall. A lake he could fill with his tears, and it would be the sweetest lake. She wipes his tears away, absorbing them as though she was absorbing — absolving — all the pain, all the yearning his soul has had to carry all these long years he has spent without her.
“Are you ready, Charles?” Rosalynn asks, her voice as warm now as ever it was, softer than petals on water.
“Ready for what?”
Her eyes say it all.
“Yes,” he says, taking a breath that never comes.
I want to be with you… Light blazes around them.
To be with you… Music plays, everlasting.
Be with you… A new dawn rises.
And he sleeps.
…
His son walks in, says, “Good morning, father.”
A soft melody plays, one he knows, though he’s never heard.
He cannot hear it. Not yet. But someday. Someday far away.
“Father?”
Joshua Stavick 