Karen is out travelling in the far desert lands (possibly meeting Joaquin mid-way), so she asked me to post this piece here on her behalf.

"What do you think they talked about?"

"Each other."

"They never had kids, did they?"

"No."

"I can picture them, sitting there in those two chairs, content with each other's company. She's got her knitting in her hands, lovingly knitting another jumper for him. To keep him warm on chilly November evenings." 

"He's got his legs stretched out in front of him, looking ahead into the horizon. Nodding now and again as she tells him who she met at the market that day."

A colourful butterfly fluttered past his face, searching for a spot to rest. Finally landing on the edge of the table.

"I wonder?"

"How often did they sit in those chairs?"

"Every day for 67 years."

"Will we live for 67 years?"

"I hope so!"

"What happened?"

"He died of a broken heart soon after she passed away."

"Oh!"

"You must be tired darling, it's been a long day. Come on let's sit down."

Simon let his hand linger on her protruding belly as he led her to the chair. With a timid feeling of trespassing Maxine lowered her weary body tentatively onto the chair. With diffidence she balanced on the edge before slowly allowing herself the luxury of sitting back.

Her hands inched over the rough surface of the wooden arms. Fingertips fondly circling the dents deeply immerged into the soft wood. The aged leather cooled her thighs through the flimsy fabric of her summer dress.

Simon, on seeing his wife comfortable and lost in her own thoughts allowed himself to sit in the vacant chair. The soothing song of chirping crickets filled his senses. He felt the gentleness of the warm evening breeze caress his face. His frame fit perfectly into the chair.

He closed his eyes. Stretched out his legs. The crickets sang on.

"Simon…" The softness of her voice drifted into his thoughts.

His lips formed a smile as he opened his eyes. Turning his head to his wife, he found her loving gaze upon him.

Her eyes reflected his own thoughts. Simultaneously their hands reached out, meeting in the centre of the small table between them and rested there.

Fingers interwoven.

Simon let his thumb stroke the palm of the woman he loved more than anything in the world.

More than himself. They closed their eyes. They knew. The journey was over.

At long last they were home.

So, she returned. She had to. She had to save what was left. She wasn’t sure of their names, the ones who took her there, and why they made such a fuss over her dress.

She sat there unable to move, staring, while thirty years of memories that she wouldn’t immerse herself in, tossed like the waves that crested and fell beneath the cliff.

The chairs they bought in Portugal, covered in blue-green leather like the sea, were so welcoming. She couldn’t bear to rid herself of the seat that lay empty, summer after summer. She closed her eyes, fingering its softness, hearing the last strains his withering voice in the rasp of palm leaves against the weathered stone.

‘Soon they will be here and undo it all’, she thought to herself with agitation.

A stranger in a pink shirt rounds the corner near the pine, his mind full of papers. She was angry at him already. It was a good thing she blocked the slatted doors with a table. The tomb of their memories was not his to rob!

From behind, she felt her husband’s familiar hand, warm on her shoulder, warmer than the sunlight, “Darling, did you leave something important behind?”

As the agent turned the corner, he saw the woman’s head, with its silver halo, fall to her chest. She had turned towards the glistening waves and away from the tomb.

1924

His voice slipped through the louvers of the doors. 

“Marie.”

She touched the wood.  The sands covered everything with a gritty talc.  

“I know you’re in there,” he said.  “The nurse told me.”

She thought he must hear her heartbeat, even above the pounding surf. 

“Or not,” he muttered.  Chair legs scraped the tiles.  

“I’m here!” she said, pressing both hands against the doors.  Her fingernails clung to the slanting edges. “I’m here, I’m here!”

His voice, closer now.  Lower. 

“Marie.  The door was locked.  Let me in.” 

“N-no,” she said.  “I told you not to.”

“Let me in.”

She rested her cheek against the grit.  “I can’t.”

“I’m not asking.”

She coughed.  A violent wrenching that splintered her ribs.  She grabbed one of the handkerchiefs and held it over her mouth.  Watched it spray with red.  

“Now, Marie.”

Her knees slid out from her, and her shoulder slumped against the door.  Her lungs burned. 

When in truth, they were drowning.  

“If you come in here,” she said, “I must already be dead.  Because you would not ask it of me, otherwise.”    

He was inches away.  His breath felt hot and salty on her face.  The breath that had bathed her neck, her eyes, her body entire.  Those lips.  Those lips that had kissed her very center.  Broken her open, and drank of her darkness.  Those lips were right—

She turned away.

“The nurse gave me a mask.”  His voice wobbled a little.  “It will be safe enough.”

She bunched the handkerchief in her fist.  A shaft of light from the small window pierced the dank room.  Dust and sand swirled in a promiscuous dance.  Her eyes dropped to where the sunshine hit the floor.  A dark drop beaded and gleamed. 

“Marie, I don’t care!”

She squeezed her eyes shut. 

And saw him there.  With sunlight on his shoulders.  Water jewelling his hair.     

Her eyes blinked open. 

“I was trying to remember,” she said, her voice stronger.  “The other day.”   

He offered nothing.  She looked to the bird of paradise the nurse had cut for her.  Perched high in its vase.

“Remember what?” he finally said.

She clasped her knees.   

“Everything.” 

She felt him shift.  The pressure from his shoulder centered her head.   

“’Everything’ is too much.  ‘Everything’ is a burden.”  He paused.  “How about a ‘something’, instead?”

Her breath came easier now.  She waited. 

“The best something I know,” he said.  “Our first evening together.  Remember it?  I had the lobster.  You had the chicken.  I wore black . . . you wore red.”

She looked down at the handkerchief.

“You barely touched that lobster,” she said. 

“I was ill.”

A laugh bubbled from her mouth.  “You were talking too much!”

“I was ill with the need to talk to you.”

She could hear the smile in his voice as that slant of light thinned by degrees.  As darkness drained into the room like a slow and steady tide. 

She heard his smile.  As he talked.  And she listened.  With her eyes fixed on a bird, seized in flight.  Tilting toward paradise.