He asked for a silly lullaby. He hadn't heard her sing in 10 years. She hadn't sung in all that time, except when thinking about him. It sentimental evenings alone, when she was in love with anyone else who wasn't him. Other drunks, other egotists, the ones she got tired of. Or woke up to, when the dream was over.
"All the things you are", he cued up. Before she could say no. A whispersing, she approached the lyrics tenderly, like they would disappear like fog, like a ghost, like they might wake the both of them.
It always used to soften her, make her laugh. Better than sex. And he knew every honest compliment had hit home already. It was an old theater trick, pretend and then it's suddenly real,
He got her to say the lyrics, as if she meant them. And then she did.
And when she looked into his eyes, they both began to cry. At how much they had always treasured each other. For him, it was the regret of never proposing, for her, even with his complete absence for a decade, how she still loved him, every day. Tears, simple, filling up her eyes until they spilled onto him, his rolling back along the crows feet of the map of his face.
She climbed into the hospital bed in the dining room during the bridge of the song. He opened his arms to her. She snuggled in, them kissing each other lightly on the cheeks.
How they had meant everything to each other. Waiting around for perfection, the time on the road was their grand romance.
And now, they embraced at the end of their lives, a sudden rush of emotion. Telling each other how much love still and always existed. 50 and 70, not a Romeo & juliet by any means.
They would awake the next morning, more at peace with their past than they had ever been.
Ready for their new future.
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