The November of Our Years

Of all the nursing homes in all the world, she had to walk into mine…

It’d been an uneventful night so far. The usual volunteer music act played oldies and consisted of a sole guitarist and a little drum machine he had propped up in front of him in the corner of the cafeteria. The patients—including myself—looked onward in awkward silence. It’s not that we didn’t enjoy the songs, but there wasn’t much to sing or dance about these days.

This specific elderly home was known to be the best in the area, and yet, the carpets were a drab grey, the wallpaper peeled in random patches, and the food tasted awful. Still, we sat in our little circles during mealtimes and tried our hands at arts and crafts on the weekends.

I was wheeling myself into the common room to watch the nightly news when I suddenly saw a new woman sitting completely alone in the corner reading. Her brown hair was long and wavy but it wasn’t until she peered up at me that we both realized who the other was. She nearly dropped her book and I almost fell right out of my wheelchair. I tried looking away and pretending that I didn’t just see her for the first time in over fifty years. No use. Lisa was already standing up and walking straight toward me with her mouth gaping open.

“David?!,” she got out. “Is that you?”

“It’s me,” I said, fidgeting with my fingers.

“I can’t believe it…, wow…, this is wild! How long’s it been?”

“Since I moved,” I said.

“It feels like ten lifetimes,” she said smiling. That smile…, I hadn’t seen it in so long and yet, I felt like I was seeing it for the first time all over again. Lisa stood there with an admiring gaze.

“Are you a resident here?”

“I’ve been here since May,” I answered before she went into her own explanation.

“I arrived this morning from the hospital. I fractured my hip last week and my doctor wants me to do some physical therapy before I go back home, he said this was the place to do it.”

“I see. I hope it heals up quickly,” I said, trying to keep my stare focused on her smile and pretend not to notice the tears welling up in her eyes.

“How long have you been back in town?,” she asked.

“Nearly a decade now,” I said. “With the kids all grown up and living in different parts of the country, I figured I’d spend my remaining years in my hometown.”

“David…, it’s so nice to see you again,” she said, keeping at bay the many emotions that seemed to wrap around her. “I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about over these next few days.”

I suppose it was serendipitous, the two of us ending up at the same nursing home after all these years. It’s true that our hometown was always on the smaller side, so it’s not like there were many options available in the first place. Still, it seemed almost cosmic. The memories swirled around my head for the rest of the night. Laying in bed, I slowly reminisced about all of the steps that had brought us so close before taking us in such different directions.

I was a mere fourteen years old when meeting her for the first time. I’d just started high school and was getting accustomed to my new courses when out of the corner of my eye, a girl took a seat right on the front row in our English class. I saw her before knowing what I was truly looking at, or for. Long lashes with dark, downcast eyes. Probably scribbling something in her notebook. She wore black from head to toe. It matched her aura and pulled me in like a magnet. The teacher started roll-call when I first heard her voice. Something about the way she spoke in lower tones made my soul want to console her own. An innate empathy. She was always deep in thought over something. I was envious that it wasn’t me she was thinking of. So I got closer, needing to know more about her.

“Hi, my name’s David,” I said, mustering up all of the confidence that I could.

“I’m Lisa,” she quietly replied. We’d go on to sit by each other in every class we had. It was a familiar presence, something that we’d felt long before ever meeting. Soon, we became friends. Then good friends. Finally, she became my best friend and with that, I’d unknowingly marked the next half-decade of my life, hers.

The two of us eventually bonded over a shared love of reading. We found ourselves doing one of our favorite things one day, strolling around a bookstore. We knew we’d wanted to buy a book and read it together so settled on John Milton. We walked out with our two copies of Paradise Lost and she’d go on to laminate hers not long afterwards, cherishing it. Tragically and regretfully, they’d end up sitting on our shelves collecting more dust than memories. To turn back time and relive something over, it’d be to have read together more often; analyzing, commenting, growing in every way.

Finally, the moment came that changed everything. The stars high above us twinkled the night sky alive. A cool air breezed through the atmosphere as she and I stayed inside my Nissan Sentra, parked and properly filled with the sweet smoke of clove cigarettes. We’d light the thin black sticks and hear the small embers sizzle themselves ablaze. Tonight felt different than all the rest of the times we’d been here before, on the top floor of one of our favorite parking structures, overlooking the entire city from a perfect vantage point.

What was it about her and I together that made so much sense and almost contracted my stomach from the intense nervousness which I felt? Maybe it was the type of energy she always gave off. Her vibrations were wrapped in a deep, dark burgundy—like always. Completely shadowed from top to bottom. Something that’d dim the lights to any room she’d step into and make everyone else take notice of her standing there in the doorway. She was nighttime personified; mysterious and romantically mystifying. I had to be a part of it—the journey she was on. I needed to know that I could reach out my hand and there’d be hers, waiting to touch mine in return. Back to the moment, back in my car;

“I need to tell you something,” inexplicably came out of my mouth. She looked at me, patiently waiting to hear what I had to say. Take a deep breath, then go. “I think I..., love you.” I couldn’t believe I’d actually said those words, let alone in that specific order. The phrase flowed through the car, hanging in the air for a moment, changing everything from there on out. She listened—wanting to say something in return but couldn’t seem to find the right words.

We eventually started driving back home. Something was different, like a weight had been removed from my shoulders and I was finally flying high throughout the sky above. We reached her neighborhood and again, parked to say goodnight, goodbye. Hopefully not for good, I thought. She exited the car only to come back in a second later and stretch herself over to my side, kissing my cheek.

“I love you too,” she quietly whispered and with that, left to go back inside her house. Like she’d just told a secret too shocking to repeat, I replayed it over and again in my mind for the rest of the night. And that’s how it all began.

The decision to end everything eventually fell upon my shoulders and no matter what I tried to do in ridding myself of the thought, nothing worked. The day finally came where I turned to walk out of the apartment once and for all, leaving her behind in tears with a broken heart, with a torn spirit. I quickly moved away afterwards. Far out west. I couldn’t bring myself to stay in the state. The pain was too much; passing by the same trees and houses and street corners where we’d made so many memories as sweethearts. She went on to marry someone else about a year later. A lawyer, I believe. Not a month has gone by since the fateful decision where I haven’t had some type of dream about that ceremony itself;

A beautiful wedding in a broken-down chapel; rays of sunlight still shining through its cracks in the rooftop, impaling the dense air with translucent touches of promised hope that pierce the fog in permanent halves. Beacons from high above all beaming prisms of rich color through the stained-glass windows and onto walls half-sprawled with the bright vines of deep green emeralds.

She stands center-stage; framed perfection. A magnum opus wrapped in white threads of pure redemption. Untouched skin; restored to life and ever-pampered by real Seraphim who flew down from His side and saved the star-crossed lovers from their eventual suburban fate of celestial disappointment. I’d found true happiness at last through her eternal smile.

“Does anyone have any reason...,” the preacher utters the words I’d been dreading to hear as she peers through her peripheral in my general direction. My entire body freezes shut—disabled by well-deserved humility and a forced life of self-imposed silence. Through the veil’s intricate lace; a microscopic image of our entire universe and its timeline starts taking shape as it simultaneously begins unravelling at both ends, gaining exponential purpose within the glistening liquid of reflective teardrops being formed real time inside the bride’s outlined-eyes. Then I wake up.

Fast forward many decades and we’d somehow refound ourselves in a little forgotten corner of our hometown once more. Maybe things would’ve turned out drastically different had we stayed together. Maybe neither of us would’ve gone on to have the lives that we did. Instead, we could’ve married each other and had our own kids, gone on our own trips, made our own memories. But we didn’t. That’s not the way it was meant to be. Or was it? And it was actually I who ruined everything? I had to know for sure. And if so, I had to find some type of forgiveness within it all.

Lisa was scheduled to stay a week, two at most, just until her hip had healed up. A couple of months later and she was still pushing me around the hallways in my wheelchair, going to the common room, the crafts room, the library, all the while speaking and sharing memories with me—and I with her. Her hip had healed up just fine, but she was intent on spending more time together, so kept asking for extensions and finding reasons to stay longer than needed.

Christmas was nearing so I found a nice little ring which I could give her as a sign of our reestablished friendship, nothing more. Once we were alone again, I pulled out the small little blue box with a thin velvet bow on top before opening my mouth to speak.

“Lisa…,” I said, fumbling to find the right words for my long-awaited speech. “I…”

“You don’t have to say a thing. It’s all over and done with. It has been for a long time.”

“I know, but still…, all these years…, I’m so sorry for everything, I should’ve never walked out the door that day.” She quickly looked away and wiped her cheek with her hand before turning back around. “I promised a very long time ago that I’d get you your ring, one way or another.” She opened the box and looked at it for a long time before finally sliding the ring onto her delicate finger and holding out her hand, admiring its shine.

“And you did,” she said, smiling.

“And I did—even if it took fifty years,” I replied. She reached into her purse and pulled out a yellowed, laminated Paradise Lost.

“Better late than never,” she said, taking my hand up in hers. “Let’s read.”