One Out of Thousands

One day you'll wake, he had said, and I'll be there. I will take your hand and bring you back with me. Until then you must wait here. You must take care of yourself now and things on this end. I will prepare a place for us there.

She was upset because she thought, he has no control over this. He will go and I will never see him again. This is what she thought at first. Then the dreams came and she lived for the day he would keep his promise.

Days tumbled down and she learned to exist without his physical presence though he was always in her heart. She had a photograph of the two of them at her home in Providence. She had the sketch a woman had made of him at Nantucket. She had a locket with a hank of his hair and she had his signature on a piece of paper. These were things she could touch. These were things to fuel her dreams.

As she aged, her hair turned white. Her skin grew slack and lost its elasticity. Her favorite chair seemed to grow larger. In the photo, they never changed. She worried for some time that if he did keep his promise and she woke one morning she would see the back of him as he realized certain ambitions were unattainable and a handsome young man left a withered old woman alone in her bed.

They'd traveled together to the top of the world. They swam in wonder-filled seas. Together they had mourned the loss of an unborn child. For a dozen years they were inseparable. Then a cancer grew inside him. It possessed him before they knew it existed. She thanked her God for the mercy He bestowed in taking him rapidly before his beauty was ruined. He did not believe in God, and the funny thing was, neither had she before they'd met.

After he was gone, she lit a candle for him once a week. Her fingers brushed the marble rail and she prayed he'd keep his promise.

For many months she woke believing she'd spent dreamless nights. Something must have passed her eyes but nothing came to mind. Then one night he came and spoke to her and reminded her of his intent. She asked him if he now believed in God. He told her he had seen Him. She must not stop believing. When she woke she felt the locket in her hand and looked over at the photograph. It takes a catalyst, she thought.

He came in dreams many times after that. Not every night. No one is so blessed to see their dear departed so frequently, but when the day had made her weary, or she had worried over her finances, or she met an acquaintance who related bad news at the market or on the road, when her arthritis flared or it rained for hours and the sun seemed not to rise, on those nights he came. Mornings after a visit she woke refreshed and thanked her God.

One night many years after he had gone, more lonely years than she could remember, she sat in her enormous chair and recalled a time when the two of them ran laughing on the beach, through the dunes at Provincetown. Bohemians and artists had been their friends. They had been to a party and wine had been served. The night sky was clear and ablaze with stars. He pointed and said, Do you see that one? The one that seems to grow and shrink? She said, Yes, and truly believed she knew which one he meant out of all the thousands to be seen. That one is where we will make our eternal home. Then a friend called them and told them to come back to the party. It was getting cold. They laughed and went behind a dune where he removed her blouse and the cool air made the hairs on her shoulders stand on end. Then she lay in the sand and he on top and inside her raised a fire that delivered her from the chill and over his shoulder she saw her home star beckoning. As she now sat in her chair, she recalled that night more vividly than any that had passed in all the intervening years.

Early next morning, before the sun rose, she woke to a smoky gray sky. She put on a robe and walked to the window. She was looking for a specific star but they were quickly disappearing as the sky began to lighten. She had hoped to see it. But it didn't matter. He knew the way.

She wondered if his hair would still be brown and how she'd look to him, remembering he had told her to take care of herself.