Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Button up your overcoat

Button up your overcoat

When they were both still young and healthy, walking on a cold May night, he turned to her. A breeze, his open face close to hers, making a big sweet production about doing up the top button of her famous blue raincoat, the one at the collar, which was more for fashion than against the cold.

There was the scent of upcoming rain, and blossoming lilacs. And he brushed his thumb against her bottom lip, and he kissed her. Long after it was all washed away from their relationship. A tender kiss among friends.

She would remember that funny little moment, wheeling his wide open broken and blank eyes around the neighborhood.

You're the only real friend I have. He'd say. Pissing her off, him treated so well, get being a friend to him and not vice versa.

All the first times he had in store for her. The first time he called her by his first wife's name. The first time he called her his daughter. The first time he talked about her in the third person, without recognizing her for herself.

She saw her life skittering along the surface of his, like skimming stones along the shores of Peters pond. Eventually, she'd bounce back in.

He had scared off so many people. The worst part was him never knowing about her last acts of kindness towards him.

But now, these last days, he looked up from the monster hospital bed in his dining room, his face open turned towards the sun, sensing the lilacs she picked for him. And he knew.



You Belong to Me-Ruth Etting

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