I met her here. Right here on a brisk autumn morning very much like this one. It was an unexpected surprise. The love I found that day. No matter how late in life we both were.
Fallen leaves swirled around my feet as I now sat nervously beside this woman. To her I was simply another stranger in the park. To me, she was my everything. My love. My wife.
I struggled to find the courage to introduce myself for the second time. The memories being nonexistent in her mind of the first. It's funny. I had everything I wanted to say practically memorized and now. Well, I could only revel in her beauty.
Our reflections had certainly changed over the course of this journey. I kept glancing at the woman so close yet so far from me. Her closed mouth still curled upward as she jotted in her notebook lines of inspiration that would come on a whim.
How beautiful she is.
I knew she would be here. Sitting under these very trees overlooking the calm river, writing words that flooded her imagination. She often told me that this setting was a sea of tranquility from which her stories flowed. How true that was.
A soft, "ahem" escaped from her lips as she shifted both knees away from me. A telling sign that my presence may be slightly...unwelcome. I knew now was the time to speak...anything...before I lost her. Again.
"A fine morning to do some writing, isn't it?" My hands disappeared into the loose pockets of my coat.
She pressed her lips together, not once taking her gaze from the journal in her lap.
"I've never been much of a writer myself." I clasped my sweaty palms together. "But you, you look as though you are a professional."
Nothing.
"So, you're an author, then?" I leaned closer to her.
"Sir?" She demanded as her chestnut locks blew away from her porcelain face.
I swallowed the lump away that grew in my throat. It was true she had always left me speechless but now...well now I struggled to look at her without completely losing my composure.
"Forgive me, ma'am." I blinked away the salty dew.
I felt her eyes on me but couldn't look up from the ground that now held my embarrassed stare.
"No." She closed her journal. "That was incredibly rude of me. I should be the one apologizing."
Thank you.
"It's quite alright, Miss." I tugged the bill of my wool cap.
"I'm Gloria." She opened her tiny hand to mine.
I know.
"Raymond." My hand enveloped hers. "It's a pleasure."
"Indeed."
Her smile. This was one thing about her that had not changed. It was an everlasting sweetness that even time could not alter. A gift all on its own. And now she was giving one to me.
"I'm not an author." She tucked her pen inside the book. "Well, not yet anyway."
You will be.
"Is that your story?" My head tilted toward the worn leather binding she held.
She glanced down only for a moment before shooting her emerald eyes at me. "I'm not sure if you can exactly call that."
"Mmm." I looked into the still waters before us.
Don't doubt yourself, Love.
How would I go on to explain the impossible to this woman? My wife. Who had no idea who I was. Or better yet, what I felt for her.
My hand rested atop the one piece of evidence I had. The only tangible thing that would give credence to my story and proof of my sanity. I wasn't ready to let the cat out of the bag just yet, however.
"Sometimes I think I should just put the pen down." She bit her bottom lip. "Try something else."
I wrestled with what to say next as thoughts raced one after another through my head. I wanted to hold her and tell her all I had experienced yet my mouth couldn't move.
She turned her head side to side as though shaking off an unreachable dream that could never be hers. With a final glance into the horizon, Gloria tied her jacket around her and stood from the bench we shared.
"It was nice meeting you, Raymond."
She was leaving. No. Not yet. I watched her youthful glow turn from me, her steps progressively gaining speed as the wind picked up. Only one thing came to mind. I called to her fleeting figure.
"A very wise person once told me that writing was the only place where the imagination was truly set free."
Gloria stopped suddenly mid step. Unable to face the strange man whose words caused such a reaction. She stood as still as a statue, the only moving thing being her cascading strands blowing in a whirlwind of wonder.
I approached my love softly. Her back still all I could see. A whisper escaped into the crisp air as I stood closer. "and the impossible can simply-"
"Be-" She interrupted before covering her mouth.
Yes love. You're the one who told me that.
Had I frightened her? This was something her father who was a writer himself always said. Something that inspired her to do what she loved in spite of society's pressures for her to tidy a house or bake a cake. She was always ahead of her time. And miraculously I was given the rare opportunity to give her a glimpse of what was ahead. For her. For us. Only if she would have me.
"You know my father?" Her lips quivered slightly.
"No." I shook my head. "I never had the pleasure."
He died before we met.
"But I know you, Gloria."
She crossed her arms tightly against her body, looking in every direction but mine. Had I said too much, too soon?
"I can assure you, Raymond, I've never seen you before today. How did you-?" She stammered.
Before she could go I quickly turned to grab my saving grace off the seat I jumped so readily from. Her green pools studied me carefully as I approached her once more. Without hesitation I offered her this prize. My heart pounded awaiting her response.
The binding cracked loudly as she opened and flipped through stiff new pages, running her fingers over each one as her eyes followed them. What was running through that mind of hers? She walked past me, still reading, and plopped down where she had been only moments before. All I could do was pace. And wait.
"These are my words." The pages flipped hastily over her thumb. "My title..."
Her already fair complexion began to lose color as she fumbled over the book she held. Her story. Not finished in this time but one day would be.
"I want to know exactly who you are." The book clapped shut in one of her hands. "Who is responsible for this...this...forgery!"
"You are." I knelt down in front of her.
Passersby began to stare at the sight of a young man on bended knee at the feet of such a woman as Gloria. One man in particular called out in between long puffs of his cigar, "Ask her already or I will!" I looked into those familiar eyes again as the jokester's laugh faded into the distance, hoping and praying the words would come to me so easily as they did for her.
"I don't understand." Her cheeks began to flush.
My shaking fingers opened the cover of the novel my wife created. She pretended to wipe her nose. Another telling sign she was fighting tears.
Don't cry, Darling.
She watched as I traced along the first page. Stopping my finger where I needed her attention. She squinted and began to read.
"Fifty years? This book was...will be written in fifty years?" Her lids widened as she looked down at me. "This has to be a joke. A cruel, heartless joke". Her voice began to break.
She wiped her face, shoved the book into my chest, and immediately stood nearly knocking me over. No. This can't be over. Not yet.
"You're right." I said in desperation.
Gloria surprisingly stood still. As though giving me one more chance to redeem myself.
"This all has to seem like a big prank to you." I stood. "But... I swear on my life it is not."
She hadn't fled... yet.
"We met in this very park. You sat right here." I touched the bench. "Just as you were today. Only..."
"What?" She sniffled.
"We were older. Gray and wrinkled." I smiled remembering. "You had just finished your story and said you were far too old to do anything with it now."
Gloria sat down, now unguarded. The way she was looking at me told me go on. She wanted to hear more.
"I was an old man. Alone in the world. Never having found anything as glorious as you until that day. Your name said it all." I removed my cap and ran a hand through my scalp. "You graciously let me read your work."
"You read all of it?" Gloria asked.
"What else was I going to do?" That made her smile. "And yes. Every word."
I fell in love with you that day, Gloria Ann." I sat beside her. "We...fell in love."
Gloria sighed. "What happened after that?"
"You married me." I spun the ring, now incredibly loose, around my finger.
We sat for what seemed only minutes but rather hours had passed. She took in everything I had to say. Everything. Details of our short but loving marriage. Her success as an author. Our families. Friends.
It was more than just my story...it was ours.
"What happened to us, Raymond?"
I swallowed hard as her eyes plead for more. "Time ran out, Love."
"And yet ...you are here now." She tucked away a piece of hair.
I didn't have an answer as to how or why this had happened. Why was I given a rare opportunity such as this? Something that people wish for all the time and yet are ultimately denied once their life is done. A chance to go back taking all of the knowledge and lessons learned over a lifetime with you.
"My only regret was to have found you so late in life." I squeezed my cap. "I longed only to have more... time with you. And in some unexplainable way that's exactly what I've been given."
Gloria's gaze shifted from me to her book. Eyes full of unbelief and amazement at the same time.
"So you're saying," She curled her mouth again. "You're my husband?"
Gloria always had a way of making me laugh in even the most uncomfortable situations. One of the things I loved most about her. We then laughed for the first time in...oh...fifty some odd years together.
The obnoxious man from earlier suddenly reappeared, only this time with a lady on his arm. Smoke still swirled into the air as he blew. Walking slowly by he couldn't resist asking, "So, what was her answer, Son?"
I planned to ignore the intrusive fellow's question. After all what could I possibly say?
My body felt as though a bolt of lightening went through it. She had touched my hand. Willingly.
"She said, yes." Gloria spoke over the man's hoarse laugh.
"Oh, darn!" The man walked on, amused with himself even more this time.
She looked at me as though she had known me all along. I was no longer a stranger in her eyes but the one her heart desired. Tears spilled down my face as I brought her tender hand to my wet lips. And with one final whisper my wife again said, Yes.
