"Would you stay with me a while?" she finally asks.
I smile and nod. She smiles back. She reaches for my hand, takes it gently and pulls it to her waist. She stares at the hardened knots that deform my fingers and caresses them gently. Her hands are still those of an angel.
"Come," I say as I stand with great effort, "let's go for a walk. The air is crisp and the goslings are waiting. It's beautiful today." I am staring at her as I say these last few words. She blushes. It makes me feel young again.
SHE WAS FAMOUS, of course. One of the best southern painters of the twentieth century, some said, and I was, and am, proud of her. Unlike me, who struggled to write even the simplest of verses, my wife could create beauty as easily as the Lord created the earth. Her paintings are in museums around the world, but I have kept only two for myself. The first one she ever gave me and the last one. They hang in my room, and late at night I sit and stare and sometimes cry when I look at them. I don't know why.
And so the years passed. We led our lives, working, painting, raising children, loving each other. I see photos of Christmases, family trips, of graduations and of weddings. I see grandchildren and happy faces. I see photos of us, our hair growing whiter, the lines in our faces deeper. A lifetime that seems so typical, yet uncommon.
We could not foresee the future, but then who can? I do not live now as I expected to. But I am not bitter. Our lives can't be measured by our final years, of this I am sure, and I guess I should have known what lay ahead. Looking back, I suppose it seems obvious, but at first I thought her confusion understandable and not unique. She would forget where she placed her keys, but who has not done that? She would forget a neighbour's name, but not someone we knew well or with whom we socialized. Sometimes she would write the wrong year when she made out her cheques, but again I dismissed it as simple mistakes that one makes when thinking of other things.
It was not until the more obvious events occurred that I began to suspect the worst. An iron in the freezer, clothes in the dishwasher, books in the oven. Other things, too. But the day I found her in the car three blocks away, crying over the steering wheel because she couldn't find her way home, was the first day I was really frightened. And she was frightened, too, for when I tapped on her window, she turned to me and said, "Oh God, what's happening to me? Please help me." A knot twisted in my stomach, but I dared not think the worst.
Six days later the doctor saw her and began a series of tests. I did not understand them then and I do not understand them now, but I suppose it is because I am afraid to know. She spent almost an hour with Dr. Barnwell, and she went back the next day. That day was the longest day I have ever spent.
Finally he called us both into his office and sat us down. She held my arm confidently, but I remember clearly that my own hands were shaking.
"I'm so sorry to have to tell you this," Dr. Barnwell began, "but you seem to be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s…”
The words echoed in my head: the early stages of Alzheimer’s…
My world spun in circles, and I felt her grip tighten on my arm. She whispered, almost to herself: "Oh, Noah… Noah…”
And tears started to fall. It is a barren disease, as empty and lifeless as a desert. It is a thief of hearts and souls and memories. I did not know what to say to her as she sobbed on my bosom, so I simply held her and rocked her back and forth.
The doctor was grim. He was a good man, and this was hard for him. He was younger than my youngest, and I felt my age in his presence.
We rocked to and fro, and Allie, my dream, my timeless beauty, told me she was sorry. I knew there was nothing to forgive, and I whispered in her ear. "Everything will be fine," I whispered, but inside I was afraid. I was a hollow man with nothing to offer.
I remember only bits and pieces of Dr. Barnwell's continuing explanation.
"It's a degenerative brain disorder affecting memory and personality… there is no cure or therapy… there's no way to tell how fast it will progress… it differs from person to person… I wish I knew more… Some days will be better than others… It will grow worse with the passage of time… I'm sorry…"
Everyone was sorry. Our children were brokenhearted, our friends were scared for themselves. I don't remember leaving the doctor's office, and I don't remember driving home. My memories of that day are gone, and in this my wife and I are the same.
It has been four years now. Since then we have made the best of it, if that is possible. Allie organized, as was her disposition. She made arrangements to leave the house and move here. She rewrote her will and sealed it. She left specific burial instructions, and they sit in my desk, in the bottom drawer. I have not seen them. And when she was finished, she began to write. Letters to friends and children. Letters to brothers and sisters and cousins. Letters to nieces, nephews and neighbours. And a letter to me.
I read it sometimes when I am in the mood and, when I do, I am reminded of Allie on cold winter evenings, seated by a roaring fire with a glass of wine at her side, reading the letters I had written to her over the years. She kept them, these letters, and now I keep them, for she made me promise to do so. She said I would know what to do with them. She was right; I find I enjoy reading bits and pieces of them just as she used to. They intrigue me, for when I sift through them I realize that romance and passion are possible at any age. I see Allie now and know I've never loved her more, but as I read the letters, I come to understand that I have always felt the same way.
I read them last three evenings ago, long after I should have been asleep. It was almost two o'clock when I went to the desk and found the stack of letters, thick and weathered. I untied the ribbon, itself almost half a century old, and found the letters her mother had hidden so long ago and those from afterwards. A lifetime of letters, letters professing my love, letters from my heart. I glanced through them with a smile on my face, picking and choosing, and finally opened a letter from our first anniversary.