Benjamin and She

He sat across from her with his gazed fastened to her lips.  He watched the words form as her mouth caressed them and sent them out into the world.  He wasn’t hearing the sounds. No, he was fascinated by how they flowed from her when she was smiling and when she was furious.  It never ceased to amaze him that those same lips could fashion words so completely foreign in sentiment and tone from one another.  Those were the lips he kissed; the lips which whispered in his ear the final words of the day and wakened him each morning with a peck on the tip of his nose.

Gradually, his ears began to detect the soft raspy sound of her voice and the words gave up their silence and took on form and shape. 

“Benjamin “she sighed.“Benjamin, you need to listen, " was all he heard before the silence enveloped him again.  His eyes sought out hers, the vibrant startling green eyes that had drawn him  across the pub sixty years ago in ninety seconds flat.  Through the crowd of Friday night beer drinkers and championship dart players they had pulled him with an intensity quite unknown to him.  The silence had come then too as he moved towards the deep wells of passion and strength shining like a beacon in her eyes.  Startled, friends called out to him as he made a channel through the sea of smelly, sweaty bodies.  Their voices were swallowed up in the edges of his awareness.  All he could see was her.

His breath caught in his chest.  His heart began to skip a beat as it always did when the silence came.  It was her and only her who drew him to this place where clouds lifted and reality faded.  Here in the place to which she drew him  was all that he needed to know, all that he had ever known and all that gave him life.  It was like the first time and every time since then.  Without her, he would have no idea how to capture the silence and sit in it, listening with every cell to the clearness and certainty that he was loved.

As the silence wrapped around him and the memories swirled,  he saw them moving gracefully around the dance floor embraced in each other’s arms. He was dressed in his one and only stiffly starched blue suit and she in a soft ivory concoction which clung to her curves and swished as they turned.  The dancers faded and changed into parents in a hospital room cradling a squalling baby with bright red cheeks and  piercing green eyes like her mother’s.  The air was filled with joy and complete abandonment to the moment as the mother lifted her eyes and met his own.  It was green of her eyes that carried him to yet another place and time. This time they melted in the green of leaves  of the tree under which they sat, hands entwined,  the carefully packed sandwiches  half eaten and long forgotten laying on the blue and yellow blanket now providing an afternoon snack for the trail of busy ants which were taking advantage of their distraction.  He could still smell the  scent of the honeysuckle carried in heat of the late afternoon.  The smoothness of her skin lingered on his rough calloused hands as he knelt before her with the dark velvet box shaking nervously in his grasp.  The light changed and  there she was, mud speckled and smelling of earth and spring, of new life and rebirth as she wiped her hands on the denim overalls stretched tight across her swollen belly.

The silence parted, the words returned.  “Benjamin, “  his name spilled out of her with all the passion and love of a lifetime wrapped in it. “It is almost time.”

He willed for the silence again, prayed in that brief second to be able to find his way back on his own. He did not want to have to hear or bear the burden of those word which held the  promise of what  was coming.  But the silence did not come and as he turned his head tears splashed like tiny raindrops on her hand.The smile which she offered him slowly spread from the edge of her mouth to the corners of her eyes.  The papery thin hand grasped his an firm steady clasp. 

“What will I do?”  the words floated like gossamer on the air.  “What will I do?”  he repeated.

“You will do what you have always done, my dearest. Hold my hand,  and this time when the moment comes you will let it go.”

“I can’t.”  He replied softly as the tears congested in his throat.  “I can’t.  I will come with you.”

”Ah, my love” she whispered as she stroked his gnarled hand still tightly clutching her own.  “You know this piece is mine to do now.” 

He ached for the silence again, but now the night was filled with sound.  The hiss of the radiator, the sound of her breathing softly, the gentle tap of the overgrown tree outside their window.  Anyone else would say it was silent, but they did not know the silence of the soul, of that deep place where stillness lived, the place to which he traveled in his beloved gaze.

The sound of their lives lay between them for long moments, then she spoke again.  “ Remember. Remember  it all. All that has made us, all that has kept us."

Quietly and in the space between his tears, her breath left and her hand relaxed its embrace and she was gone.   Still clinging to her, his head dropped to the bed beside her and the tears found their way from the deepest corners of his heart out to wrinkles and curves of his cheeks.

“What will I do? What will I do?” 

Then as the large oak branch tapped against the pane again,  he saw her  with arms outstretched towards him .  As he reached towards her the silence returned and in that moment he knew. He knew that the way to that place would be forever open for his return. It was her love, which was not bound by time or space which made it so.