Here is a collection of some my short fiction.
- The Promise
- Danny and Mel
- Annie’s Story
The Promise
by Larry B. Gildersleeve
The Promise
What do you get your wife for her birthday when you both know it will be her last? The question tumbled into Daniel’s early morning thoughts moments before Mallory opened her amber eyes. He rose from his chair and leaned across to lovingly lift strands of chemo-ravaged hair away from eyelashes ensnaring them. She often assured him their first kiss would be the highlight of her day.
Not that long ago, their young lives stretched out before them like a Wyoming highway with no curves, no speed limit, no end in sight. An oncologist’s prognosis sent them careening down a winding, unpaved country road, one with but a handful of miles remaining.
They met his first day at a new school where she was hands-down the prettiest and most popular girl in their sixth-grade class. His shyness no match for her persistence as she eased his rural-to-urban assimilation among their ten-year-old classmates, their friendship causing envy among the girls and puzzlement among the boys. Their lockers stood next to each other, their paths walking to and from school intersected so each school day began and ended with them together. She’d learned her name meant unlucky in French and asked him to call her Mel, but only when they were alone together. A familiarity she denied everyone else.
If Hollywood ever wanted a script for Harry and Sally, the Early Years, screen writers could look to the true story of Danny and Mel before college separated them. They exchanged letters and talked by phone, and spent time together back home during school breaks and holidays, but lost contact in a pre-internet world when Mallory left on an extended church mission abroad and Daniel entered law school.
One crisp autumn day as the Eighties came to an end, Daniel sat outside his favorite suburban DC coffee shop. A floodgate of memories opened when a woman wearing a Walkman headset sat at a nearby table, closed her eyes, and rocked back and forth as she softly sang a song popular during his senior year in high school. A few minutes later, she pulled off the earphones, brushed back her flowing auburn hair, and noticed him staring.
“Love that song. Hope I didn’t ruin it for you.”
One hand dispatched his baseball cap, the other his dark sunglasses.
“Danny? Is that you?” she asked, incredulously.
He nodded, a knowing grin spreading across his face.
She stumbled to his table. After a long embrace, she stepped back.
“Did you recognize me?” she asked
“The moment you sat down. Join me?”
“Like you could stop me.”
Daniel looked at the woman across from him as if he’d just learned he held a winning lottery ticket.
“Danny, I have to say, you look fantastic!” She waited, then leaned toward him. “Um, that was your invitation to tell me I do, too.”
Being with her again rekindled a sense of boyish giddiness he’d felt all those years ago the first time she reached to hold his hand walking home from school.
“How about beyond beautiful?”
“You always did say the nicest things, Daniel Colin Collins. Say, are you still writing poetry?”
“Some. My time is all pretty much taken up lawyering.”
“Does that mean you’re living your Perry Mason dream, never losing a case?”
“Win some, lose some. Mostly win,” he answered, with a smile. “Where are you living now?”
“Renting a townhouse in the District. It’s a struggle, congressional staff pay being what it is.”
“Then what brings you out this way?”
“My favorite secondhand bookstore. Surprised it’s taken this long to run into each other. And you? Where do you live?”
“Same house you’d remember. Moved back after my parents died. I like having some distance from the downtown lunacy, and it helps me keep memories alive.”
Her eyes pulled his into them and his pulse quickened.
“Am I one of those memories?” she asked, coyly.
“Happens each time I look out the kitchen window and see the swing in the backyard.”
“We made a lot of plans in that swing, didn’t we?” she asked. “Dreamed a lot of dreams.”
“We did.”
“Other than being Perry Mason, are other dreams coming true?”
He stroked an imaginary beard while pondering. “Still working on ‘em, I guess. You?”
A warm feeling came over her. “One. Not too long ago.”
“And?”
“The moment I saw you sitting here.”
They embraced the silence, each contemplating where they’d unexpectedly found themselves.
“Mel, do you have to be anywhere in the next hour or so?”
She shook her head.
He reached for her hand. “Our swing beckons.”
From that day on, they were inseparable. On their honeymoon in Hawaii the following June, a tropical breeze lifted Mallory’s hair from her shoulders as they held hands on the beach at sunset. In the gathering darkness, she asked, “When did you know you were in love with me?”
“Honestly, I can’t remember a time I wasn’t.”
“Good to know. And now, Danny Boy, we have all the time in the world.”
Six years later, the march of time after discovery of Mallory’s cancer scorched calendar pages like a wind-blown fire, laying waste to their “forever more” in a matter of months. With her thirty-third birthday only a few days away, the gift question flickered into Daniel’s mind as he gazed at medicine bottles lined up on the dresser like so many toy soldiers waiting to be called into battle.
“That’s so sweet of you to ask.” Lying in bed in their Georgetown residence, her expression revealed the serenity she felt having made peace with their narrowing road. “Honestly, Danny, the one thing I want, no one can give me.” She paused. “But now that you’ve asked, there is something.“
“What?”
“A promise.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me that after I’m gone, you’ll follow your heart to find another woman to love.”
Mallory often couldn’t focus much farther than her arm could reach, and Daniel hoped for one of those times as his eyes filled.
“Oh, and it would be nice if she’s someone I’d approve of,” she added, smiling.
“How will I know?”
“You’ll know, “ she answered, a faint twinkle in her eyes. “Especially if she has a lucky name.”
During lucid moments in her final days, Mallory reminded Daniel, “You must keep your promise. For both of us.”
Daniel knew what he had with Mallory was so rare, so wonderful, stretching back to their childhood, there would be no one else after she went away. There would be no room in his broken heart for another.
The first week of April, the end of their road coming into view, Mallory watched Daniel return the toy soldiers filled with pills to parade rest.
“In my prayers, I ask for three things.” He strained to hear her hushed voice as she continued. “Not much pain. My dignity. I won’t die alone.”
She closed her eyes and he held her hands for what seemed an eternity, fearing the end had come. He felt a gentle squeeze as her eyes opened.
“Danny, the first two are in God’s hands, the third in yours.”
God came through for Mallory, and so did Daniel. Three days later, the antique grandfather clock in the townhouse foyer chimed eleven times in the darkness when Mallory left one to be with the other. As daylight began breaking over the city, Daniel went outside and fell to the ground weeping.
Overcome with grief, Daniel distanced himself from close friends who feared he might do something to join Mallory, fears that weren’t unfounded. He had one awkward meeting with her parents after the funeral before he shuttered his legal practice and sold the townhome to a newly arrived diplomat.
Months later, on a blistering hot August day, Daniel left behind everyone and everything he and Mallory had known and shared. As a high-powered attorney, he’d recorded his days in the fifteen-minute increments billed to clients. Thousands of miles away, he’d be able to measure his life by the changing seasons in a place only Mallory would have known where to look.
Thanksgiving week that same year, Daniel knelt at the same place and on the same date as when his beloved Mallory had accepted his down-on-one-knee proposal while they were on a hiking trip. He opened an urn, raised his arm, and watched her ashes being swept upward. Later, with the sun setting behind him and his head down against the mountain wind, he walked back toward his Jeep. He didn’t mind the Colorado winters he knew lay ahead of him. He minded being there without her.
As he drove away, what Daniel had no way of knowing was that in less than two years he’d honor his promise and begin a new life with a woman who would have met with Mallory’s approval.
(END)
————————-
Danny and Mel
by Larry B. Gildersleeve
Washington, D.C. 1996
What do you get your wife for her birthday when you both know it will be her last? The question tumbled into Daniel Collins’ thoughts as early morning sunlight poured in through a bedroom window framed by tied-back white pleated curtains.
More acutely aware of clocks and the calendar than at any time in his life, he instinctively knew thirty minutes had passed as he sat silently next to Mallory. When she opened her amber eyes, she turned toward him. He rose stiffly from his chair and leaned across the edge of the bed to lovingly lift strands of chemo-ravaged hair away from the eyelashes ensnaring them. She often assured him their first kiss would be the highlight of her day.
Their morning routine drew him to the medicine bottles lined up on the top of the dresser like so many toy soldiers waiting to be called into battle. He counted out the first of the day’s pills and helped her steady the water glass she raised to her lips. He returned to the well-worn leather easy chair, a legacy from his bachelor days he’d wedged between her bed and the wall. A tight fit, but they both craved the closeness. Daniel would have slept there if Mallory hadn’t insisted otherwise. He let her believe he spent his nights sleeping comfortably in their master suite upstairs instead of on a cot a few steps down the hallway, close enough to hear her labored breathing until one of her little soldiers relaxed her into a mercifully peaceful sleep. Then, and only then, could he drift off.
Not that long ago, their lives stretched out before them like a Wyoming highway with no curves, no speed limit, no end in sight. An oncologist’s prognosis had sent them careening down a winding, unpaved country road, one that would quickly narrow from months to weeks to one with but a handful of miles remaining.
That first night, when they had no more tears to shed and Mallory finally asleep, Daniel slipped away from their bed to make his way outside to the front of their Georgetown townhouse. Cloaked in nighttime darkness away from the glow of streetlights, he paced back and forth on the cobblestone sidewalk. Hidden from prying eyes, he looked up at the sky and cried out, “I can’t live without her. She believes in You. If You must take one of us, let it be me. Let it be me.”
With a hospice caregiver to watch over her during daylight hours, Mallory insisted Daniel write his poetry, though his efforts were half-hearted, at best. She also encouraged him to read lawyer novels by Grisham and Turow, a luxury he’d previously lacked the time to indulge. He hated what made it possible now, but welcomed the brief respite of losing himself in the fictional lives of others while country music played in the background. His thoughts always returned to Mallory.
#
In 1973, the tragic deaths of Daniel’s parents brought him from a Pacific Northwest farm to live with his grandparents in Arlington, Virginia. His grandfather, a lawyer, had for many years been a congressman representing a portion of Washington state.
On his first day at school Daniel met Mallory, hands-down the prettiest and most popular girl in their sixth-grade class at Walter Reed Elementary. Their lockers stood next to each other and their paths walking to and from school intersected. Each school day began and ended with them together. His shyness was no match for her persistence as she eased his rural-to-urban assimilation among their ten-year-old classmates. Given their ages, the unique friendship caused envy among the girls and puzzlement among the boys.
She told him she’d learned her name meant unlucky in French, and asked him to call her Mel, but only when they were alone together. A familiarity she denied everyone else. He went by Danny at that age. He confided in her that his grandmother had told him his middle name, Colin, was the fruit of his mother’s offbeat sense of humor when his father insisted their only child become a fourth-generation Daniel Collins. If Hollywood ever wanted a script for Harry and Sally, the Early Years, screen writers could look to the true story of Danny and Mel until college separated them.
While apart, they exchanged letters and talked by phone, and spent time together back home in Arlington during school breaks and holidays. Mallory’s life was faith-centered; Daniel had attended church only because she wanted him to and he wanted to be with her. They attended each other’s graduations but lost contact in a pre-internet world when Mallory left on an extended church mission abroad and Daniel entered law school.
Daniel’s grandparents deeded him their North Nineteenth Street home long before their deaths within a few months of each other. The modest, two-story, mid-century red brick residence was a short walk through the familiar Walter Reed schoolyard to the Westover shopping center where he often caught the bus downtown rather than self-navigate the insanity of weekday DC commuter traffic.
#
One crisp autumn Saturday afternoon as the decade of the Eighties came to an end, Daniel sat outside his favorite Westover coffee shop. At a nearby table, shaded by an umbrella from the sun’s warming rays, a woman looking to be about his age wearing a Walkman headset closed her eyes, and rocked back and forth as she sang a song popular during his senior year in high school. A floodgate of memories opened the instant he recognized her, but tempted as he was, he didn’t interrupt. When the song ended, she blinked and noticed him staring. She removed the earphones, swept back her thick auburn hair and called across an empty table and chairs separating them.
“Love that song. Hope I didn’t ruin it for you.”
One hand dispatched his baseball cap, the other his dark sunglasses, a knowing grin spreading across his face.
“Danny? Is that you?” she asked, incredulously.
“It is.”
Mallory stumbled to his table. After a long embrace, she stepped back. “Did you recognize me?”
“Of course. The moment you sat down.”
“How embarrassing! Why didn’t you say something?”
“Didn’t wanna interrupt. And you were doing such a good job entertaining everyone.”
When she looked around, patrons at other tables clapped appreciatively.
“Shame on you.” She punched his arm. “Now I’m really embarrassed.”
“Shouldn’t be. You sing beautifully. Just as you did back in high school.”
“You remembered?”
“How could I forget?” He stared at her for a moment. “Join me?”
“Like you could stop me.”
He pulled back the chair next to his and helped her peel off a multi-colored wool jacket she draped across the back of the chair.
“Hey,” she said, “speaking of music, as I recall, you liked country when absolutely no one else did. Correct?”
“Ahead of the times, it turns out. But I’ve lived long enough for it to get some of the respect it deserves from my elitist friends. And since we’re recalling things correctly, you were in that ‘absolutely no one else’ group.”
“Was I?”
“You were.”
“Did you ever try to change my mind?” she asked.
“I did. When you said it all sounded like bad garage band music with banjos and fiddles, I gave up.”
Her eyebrows arched. “I said that?”
“Uh, huh.”
“Kinda harsh, I admit. Hearing it now. And you remembered for a long time.” She rested her clasped hands on the table. “Too late for an apology?”
“Forget it. I’m sure back then I didn’t like everything you did.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“Not true. Let me think.” He stroked an imaginary beard, then moved his hand away and lifted his index finger. “How ‘bout this one? You never got me to ballroom dancing class.”
“That’s right! But I did try, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“Okay, fair enough. Now, I don’t mean for this to sound like a character flaw. Do you still like country music?”
“I do. Not the new stuff so much.”
“What then?”
“The old guys. The country legends. As others have said, I’d pay good money to hear Ray Price sing the Nashville phone book.
Daniel struggled to fully grasp how his life had changed in an instant. He looked at the woman sitting across from him as if he’d won the lottery. In a way, they both had.
“Danny, I have to say, you look fantastic!” She leaned toward him, waited a few seconds. “Um, that was your invitation to tell me I do, too.”
“Not the word I was searching for.”
“Well . . .”
“Hmm. At Walter Reed, I’d have said cute. In high school—attractive. Definitely attractive.”
“Smooth. And college?”
“The word that comes to mind . . . is beautiful.”
“Even smoother. And now?”
“Still searching.” Their surprise meeting, and being with her again, rekindled a sense of boyish giddiness he’d felt all those years ago the first time she reached to hold his hand walking home from school. “As a placeholder, how about beyond beautiful?”
“You always did say the nicest things, Daniel Colin Collins. Say, are you still writing poetry?”
“Now it’s you who remembered.”
“How could I forget?”
“We’re mimicking each other like we used to do when we were kids.”
“Thought you’d notice,” she answered, her cheeks lifting as she smiled.
“And the answer is yes. I’m still writing. Some. Not much. My time is all pretty much taken up lawyering.”
“So, does that mean you’re living your dream? Being Perry Mason and never losing a case?”
“Almost as good. The other side does prevail from time to time. Not often.”
“That being said, I’ll wait, not patiently, while my Perry Mason searches for something better than beyond beautiful.”
“I’m working on it. In the meantime, your Perry Mason would like to buy you a coffee. Still take it the same way?”
She nodded.
“Be right back.”
#
Despite stellar grades and the law review, Daniel had accepted a low-paying public defender job the month after graduation to give him the trial experience he didn’t think a white shoe law firm would provide a newly minted associate. He wasn’t surprised his clients were among the worst of the worst on the lower rungs of society. After three years of carrying the workload of at least two lesser lawyers, he felt he’d put in his time. Someone else could take a turn behind the battered, government-issued wooden desk in a cramped office. Let them suffer erratic heating and cooling he shared with other overworked and equally disheartened attorneys.
Daniel’s long hours at low wages ultimately paid dividends. His courtroom prowess gained him notoriety, and when word spread he intended to make a change, several prestigious firms aggressively pursued him. He met with all of them, but at the end of the day, his loner bent prevailed and he went out on his own. A risky decision in a town with more lawyers than trees, but destiny smiled favorably. After only a few years, he rang the success bell loudly as the all-important DC link to a cadre of Southern trial lawyers who’d launched the class-action takedown of big tobacco companies.
The “link” came about thanks to his grandfather’s impeccable reputation and connections, both of which extended after his death well beyond the District of Columbia’s rectangular borders, and Daniel’s performance during lengthy interviews sealed the deal. When tobacco companies settled the lawsuits, his share of the court-awarded legal fees assured his financial independence for several lifetimes.
#
“Mel, where are you living now?” Daniel asked, returning to their table, coffee in hand.
“In the District. Renting a townhouse at Hillandale across from Georgetown University. If I had the money, I’d buy it. Doubt I ever will, congressional staff pay being what it is.”
“I know the place. It’s real nice. Been to parties there a few times.”
“Speaking of pay.” She pointed to his shoes. “Doesn’t lawyering earn you enough to afford socks?”
“Don’t like them. Only wear ‘em days I’m in court. Keep a few pairs in my office just in case. Say, what brings you out this way today?”
“The Westover secondhand bookstore. Not my first time. Surprised it’s taken this long for us to run into each other. And you? Where do you live?”
“Same house you’d remember. Stayed put after my grandparents died. I like having some distance from the downtown lunacy. Helps keep me sane. Or at least I think it does. And it keeps memories alive.”
Her eyes pulled his into them and his pulse quickened.
“Am I one of those memories?” she asked, coyly.
“You are. Happens each time I look out a window and see the swing in the backyard.”
“One of my favorite memories! We made a lot of plans in that swing, didn’t we?” she asked. “Dreamed a lot of dreams.”
“We did. And I remember you telling me dreams never come true for those who never dream.”
“I said that?” she asked.
“You did.”
“Well, I continue to marvel at your memory. Must’ve been repeating something I read or heard someone else say. I’m not that articulate.”
“I beg to differ.”
“That’s very kind. Anyway, doesn’t matter. But now I have to ask. Other than being Perry Mason, are other dreams coming true?”
“Still working on ‘em, I guess. You?”
A warm feeling came over her. “One came true not too long ago.”
“Something you can share?”
“Happily. Being with you again. And Danny, beyond beautiful is just fine. I don’t deserve it, but I’m not going to let you take it back, either.”
“Not a chance.” He shifted in his chair. “Mel, do you have to be anywhere in the next hour or so?”
“I don’t. Why? What’ve you got in mind?”
He reached for her hand. “Our swing beckons.”
From that day on they were inseparable. She always called him Danny when the rest of the world knew him as Daniel or Dan. When he told her he’d stopped going to church, she didn’t say anything but a certain look of determination crossed her face. A few Sunday mornings later, he donned a suit and tie to be at her side at the Washington National Cathedral a short distance from her townhouse. As the music began, Mallory said a silent prayer of thanks that the man she’d never stopped loving was worshiping with her.
Walking out an hour or so later, Daniel stopped them at a large object inlaid in the marble floor.
“Never seen one like that. What is it?” he asked.
“A Jerusalem Cross. It’s the cathedral’s emblem. Actually, as you can see, five crosses.”
“What’s the meaning behind it?”
She turned her program to the back page. He read that the five intersecting crosses symbolized each of the wounds Christ suffered at His crucifixion, with the four smaller crosses also symbolizing the spread of Christianity from its Holy Land origins to the four corners of the earth.
Daniel folded his program and put it in his jacket pocket. The next day, he spent his lunch hour with a specialty jeweler down the street from his office.
Mallory’s parents had known Daniel since he was ten, yet despite all his success and all his attributes, they couldn’t bring themselves to embrace him as a suitable husband for their daughter. Mallory knew the reason without them telling her, though they did anyway—often, and at length. His ambivalence toward organized religion and how that might impact the lives of their future grandchildren. She asked Daniel not to be drawn into arguments, an agreement that gave rise to an uncomfortable truce between the two generations on the rare occasions they were together.
The summer after the young couple found each other again, a dozen or so close friends attended the civil ceremony and informal gathering afterward Mallory wanted. Her parents chose not to be among them. Daniel often told Mallory he regretted causing estrangement, especially since he had no family of his own. Each time he apologized she assured him everything would heal . . . in time.
In the months leading up to their wedding, Daniel was late getting home every Tuesday and Thursday, and he didn’t correct Mallory’s assumption it was work-related. Those evenings, before he returned to their Hillandale home, Daniel took ballroom dancing lessons.
On their honeymoon at a resort hotel on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, a tropical breeze lifted Mallory’s hair from her shoulders as they slow-danced on sunbaked sand at sunset the day before they had to leave paradise and return home.
“Someday,” he said, pulling her tighter to him, “we’ll leave that zoo and move to where this all began.”
“Back across the river to Arlington? Why?”
“No. Not at all. To Three Oaks.”
“Ah, you’re thinking of your down-on-one-knee, Rocky Mountain proposal during our Colorado hiking trip.”
“I am.”
“Romantic, yes. But my darling Danny, that’s not where this all began.”
“It’s not?”
“You and I began that morning I showed you how to open your locker at school. Remember?”
“I do. I guess you’re right. If you hadn’t, there might not be a you and me now.”
“There most certainly would,” she said, confidently.
“Why are you so certain?”
“I’d have found a way.”
“Why?”
“Even sixth-graders can fall in love.” Mallory stopped their gentle swaying, reached her hands to each side of his head, drew him to her and kissed him passionately. “I did.”
As they had done every evening since their arrival, they held hands and watched the sun slip below the Pacific horizon. In the gathering darkness, they slowly walked back toward their oceanfront hotel and the waiting ballroom.
Mallory fingered the handcrafted, eighteen-karat gold Jerusalem Cross dangling on a gold chain around her neck, a Valentine’s Day gift. “Danny, when did you know you were in love with me?”
“It wasn’t the sixth grade. But honestly, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t. And I don’t want to.” He wrapped his arms around her. “I let you get away once. Won’t ever let it happen again.”
“Good to know. And now, Danny Boy, we have all the time in the world.”
After the discovery of Mallory’s cancer six years later, the march of time scorched calendar pages like a wind-blown fire, laying waste to their “forever more” in a matter of months. Lying in bed in their Georgetown townhouse, her head rested comfortably against a small embroidered pillow. On it, her grandmother had stitched the words I believe in angels. When years ago Daniel had asked, “Do you?” Mallory answered, “Of course. Don’t you?”
With her thirty-third birthday only a few days away, the gift question flickered into Daniel’s mind like the persistent quivering of a neon storefront light.
“That’s so sweet of you to ask.” She reached for his hand. “A bracelet from Tiffany, heavily laden with their ridiculously expensive charms, lots of them, would be nice.”
Thinking her answer a serious one, and not wanting to deny her anything, he edged forward in his chair.
“Which charms?”
“I was only trying for a bit of fun with you.” She slowly turned her head from side to side, smiling. “Jewelry is the last thing I’d want.”
“Okay, what then?”
“Honestly, Danny, I haven’t given it any thought because the one thing I want, no one can give me.” Her face revealed the serenity she felt having made peace with their narrowing road. “But now that you’ve asked, there is something.“
He leaned even closer. “What?”
“Promises.”
“Promises?”
“Yeah. Since you asked, that’s what I want for my birthday. Got something to write with?”
“I’m sure there’s something here somewhere. Why?”
“Please get it.” She released his hand. “Dictation time, counselor.”
He returned a few minutes later.
“At the top, write: I promise Mel.”
He did, then straightened up in his chair and turned to look at her. He would regret forever neither of them had been much for taking pictures. And now it was too late. As was their decision to delay having children. In truth, it had been Mallory who insisted they wait.
“Here are the promises. And remember, you asked.” She spoke slowly as he wrote. “I will blame nothing or no one. I will pray daily. I will go to church often.” She paused to let him catch up. “I will treasure my friends and keep them close. I will keep lawyering. I will write my poetry. I will get counseling.”
Hearing the last promise, Daniel’s expression gave his thoughts away.
“You’ll need it but think you don’t. Write it down. Please.”
He did, and sensing she’d finished, laid pen and leather-bound notebook aside.
“One more.” She gestured in the air as if she had the pen in her hand. “After Mel is gone . . . you’re not writing.” He picked up the pen and notebook. “After Mel is gone, I won’t just listen to my head. I’ll go where my heart leads me.” When their eyes met again, she said, “I have something to help you.”
She reached for her grandmother’s Bible, the leather cover softened and smudged by three generations of faithful hands. She feathered the pages open to the place marked by an attached silk ribbon and withdrew a small, fragile piece of paper yellowed with age. She handed it to Daniel and asked him to read it to her.
It was a poem with a title but lacking either author or date. It easily fit in the palm of his hand. He squinted slightly at the small newspaper print before his courtroom baritone filled the small room.
When Twilight Comes
When twilight comes across the quiet land,
I crave your presence, you who understand.
The comradeship of word and look and smile;
the gentle talk and laughter after a while,
and homeward walk across the wave-worn sand.
How will it be, I wonder, when the grand
full midday glow of life has vanished, and
the sun’s last rays fall coldly on the dial,
when twilight comes?
Oh, that we two together still may stand;
undone, perchance, the deeds we hoped and planned,
tired and very old, yet missing naught
of tenderness or olden word or thought,
God grant that life may leave us hand in hand,
when twilight comes.
When he finished, she reached out her frail hand and he gently grasped it.
“The hand in hand when twilight comes. Danny, it’s what I wanted for us. Now promise me it will happen for you. With someone else.”
With the same care Mallory had shown, Daniel returned the poem to its place of safe-keeping. He felt the warmth of tears he couldn’t subdue. There were times when Mallory couldn’t focus much farther than her arm could reach, and he hoped for one of those times as he dried his eyes. She didn’t notice.
“Oh, one more thing,” she said.
He attempted to lighten the moment as he put his handkerchief away. “That would be your second one more thing.”
“Clever. But it does show you’re paying attention. That’s good. Something I’m counting on.”
He waited several seconds. “And?”
“And what?”
“The one more thing.”
“Oh, yes. Remember. A promise is a promise. Going where your heart leads you. Finding someone else.”
When she grew quiet, he searched for another quick-witted reply but came up empty. And it was her voice he wanted to hear, not his.
“Where was I? Oh, I remember. She has to be someone I’d approve of.”
“How will I know?” he asked.
“You’ll know. And hopefully, your new wife will have a name that translates more optimistically into French than mine.”
If he wasn’t reading novels or attempting to write poetry and failing miserably, whenever Mallory slept during the day, Daniel filled the hours scribbling page after page, recording memories both seminal and trivial he could cling to after she was gone. When was the last time they slow danced? Watched a sunset? Made tender, familiar love on a Saturday morning before or after reading The Washington Post in bed together? Ate at their favorite restaurant near DuPont Circle? Was their last chardonnay Cloudy Bay from New Zealand or Meiomi from coastal California?
Though it made him crazy, knowing he couldn’t turn back time, he kept at it, day after day.
During increasingly fewer lucid moments in her final days, Mallory reminded Daniel, “You must keep those promises. For both of us.”
Memorizing the short list posed no challenge, but he knew Twilight would never happen. What he had with Mallory so rare, so wonderful, stretching back to their childhood, there would be no one else after she went away. No do-overs in life. Despite what Mallory wanted for him, there would be no room in his broken heart for another woman.
The first week of April, the end of their road coming into view, Mallory watched as Daniel returned the toy soldiers filled with pills to parade rest. She spoke so softly he strained to hear her.
“I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“I want you to begin wearing my cross.”
“Are you sure?”
Daniel was certain she hadn’t taken it off since that Valentine’s Day dinner in an elegant restaurant when he completely surprised her. Those six plus years now seemed like six days.
“I am. But I’ll need your help.”
Daniel wasted neither words nor time in asking ‘why.’ He gently pushed down the pillow and slipped his hands beneath her neck. He kissed her forehead and both cheeks before returning to his chair.
“In my prayers, I ask for three things. Will you do the same?”
“Of course, Mel. Just tell me.”
He fumbled around fastening the lobster claw clasp to secure the dainty chain with the Jerusalem cross.
“Three things. Not much pain. My dignity. I won’t die alone.” She closed her eyes, and he feared the passing of her cross was her way of letting him know they’d finally come to the end. He held her hands for what seemed to be an eternity before her eyes opened and she whispered, “Will you pray those for me?”
“I will.” His raspy, trembling, broken voice would have been unrecognizable to those who knew him.
“Danny, the first two are in God’s hands, the third in yours.”
God came through for Mallory, and so did Daniel. Three days later, the antique grandfather clock in the townhouse foyer chimed eleven times in the darkness when Mallory left one to be with the other.
Daniel waited several hours before making the calls he knew he had to make, then went outside as daylight began breaking over the city. He looked up at the orange-red sky on the eastern horizon, the aftermath of the storm that passed through during the night. He fell to the ground . . . and wept.
After Mallory died, Daniel burned the notebook containing both the handful of promises she’d dictated and the countless memories he’d recalled. He blamed himself for the time away from Mallory spent lawyering before she was diagnosed. Overcome with grief, one by one he distanced himself from those he’d promised to treasure and keep close. They talked among themselves and all feared he might do something to follow her, to be with her again. If they could have gotten inside Daniel’s mind, they would have known their fears weren’t unfounded. But the harder they tried to include him, the greater his distancing. Eventually, they all stopped trying and he got what he wanted. To be left alone. He had one awkward meeting with her parents after the funeral before he shuttered his legal practice and sold their townhome to newly arrived foreign diplomat.
One blistering hot late August day a few months later, Daniel left behind everyone and everything he and Mallory had known, never once sharing where he was going. As a high-powered Washington, DC attorney, he recorded his days in the fifteen-minute increments billed to clients. Soon, thousands of miles away, he’d measure his life by the changing seasons in a place only Mallory would have known where to look. It was there he cast her ashes into the wind at the spot where she’d eagerly accepted his proposal.
The week after Thanksgiving that same year, Daniel sat alone on a hard bench in a remote Colorado mountain town. His Washington Post subscription, the only enduring connection other than memories of Mallory to his previous life, arrived by mail at the Three Oaks post office a few days after the front-page date. It lay open on the faded green laminate tabletop in the corner booth of the town’s only diner as he sipped a steaming cup of black coffee while reading about Queen Elizabeth II.
In the story, the writer referenced a famous quote from a speech the queen had given to an assemblage at Guildhall in London on her fortieth anniversary as monarch. Speaking in late November, the Queen reflected on that year by saying, “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. It has turned out to be an annus horribilis. I suspect that I am not alone in thinking it so.”
“Annus horribilis,” the Post article explained, is Latin for “horrible year,” the queen’s intentional twist on John Dryden’s 1667 poem, “Annus Mirabilis,” year of miracles. In March, Elizabeth’s second son, Andrew, separated from his wife, Duchess Sarah Ferguson. In April, Princess Anne, the queen’s only daughter, divorced Captain Mark Phillips. In May, the book Diana: Her True Story in Her Words documented for a voyeuristic world her fractured marriage to the queen’s oldest son, Prince Charles. In the succeeding months, the British tabloid press recounted in excruciating detail the alleged infidelities of both Charles and Diana. On November 20th, four days before the queen’s speech, a fire destroyed a portion of Windsor Castle, the historic royal residence in London.
Okay, Daniel thought, she had a rough year back then. And now, this is my annus horribilis.
He gazed out the window at the gently falling snow being swept along the side of the diner by an occasional gust of wind. Every morning, he carefully refolded the newspaper and left it on the counter by the cash register for others to read. He walked a few steps across the sticky linoleum floor, put his hands in his pockets, bracing himself against the weather outside as he pushed open the door, knowing he was free.
Free of the deafening sound of jet airplanes taking off every few minutes from Reagan Airport. Free of pollution from vehicles choking too few traffic arteries flowing in and out of the District. Free of sidewalks so overcrowded a person couldn’t get from one place to another without elbowing others aside. Free of every sight and sound and smell that would remind him of a life he no longer had — and one he no longer wanted.
Despite the loving embrace of his grandparents, Daniel had grown up a loner. He mostly kept to himself in school, lettering in tennis because it wasn’t a team sport. When he had the choice, he practiced law alone. Only his grandparents and Mallory had been able to penetrate his defenses. Now that was all behind him.
Daniel didn’t mind the Colorado winters he knew lay ahead of him. He minded being there without her. It hadn’t been their plan. His and Mallory’s. Now he was alone. All alone.
Head down into the wind, walking toward his Jeep, Daniel had no way of knowing that in less than two years, he would experience not annus mirabilis, rather the miracle of a future with a woman who would have met with Mallory’s approval.
END
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Annie’s Story
by Larry B. Gildersleeve
(From the award-winning novel Blue by You)
Daniel had been pretty much a loner all his life save for the friendship of a girl, and his love for the woman who became his wife, and they were the same person. When cancer took Mallory from him a few days after her thirty-third birthday, he fled Nashville, leaving behind a promising music career and everything else that held meaning. He ran away to the remoteness of the Colorado mountains, to the one place he hoped would help keep her memory alive. On the very spot and on the very calendar day years earlier he’d dropped to one knee, he cast Mallory’s ashes to the wind. Walking back to his Jeep, he convinced himself there were no do-overs in life, no second chances masquerading as firsts.
A year and a half later, Daniel had long since crossed over from being alone with memoires to being desperately lonely, and knew his time to join Mallory by his own hand was drawing near. Late one November afternoon, he sat on the front porch of his rustic home near the village of Three Oaks and watched a dog, mostly black with streaks of rust and white, approach warily. The canine stopped and remained still as the tall, slender man rose from his chair and descended the few steps to the dirt pathway below. Sniffing the back of a non-threatening hand was soon followed by at first hesitant, then vigorous, tail wagging.
Before darkness enveloped the picturesque landscape, Daniel shared his evening meal with the ravenous newcomer, and later, the dog fell into exhausted sleep on the floor next to his benefactor’s bed. The next morning, Daniel drove to a small veterinary clinic, intending to leave the animal there.
The vet found his newest patient, an Australian Shepherd, to be in generally good health, nothing that couldn’t be cured by nutrition and loving care. While his pre-teen daughter Annie bathed the dog in another room, the man known to everyone as Doc told Daniel his companion had a few more good years in him and was glad he’d found a home.
“Not my companion,” Daniel corrected, shaking his head. “Can’t take him in. Won’t work. Not at all.”
“Then you’ll have to tell Annie,” Doc replied, grinning. “And that’s something I don’t envy.”
Daniel’s words fell on deaf ears, unable to persuade the waif-like girl, clad in bib overalls and an ill-fitting Denver Broncos sweatshirt, to his way of thinking.
“And I think you should name him Blue,” Annie said cheerfully, as Daniel prepared to depart.
Blue rode shotgun on the trip back to the cabin, and the two of them easily bonded out of mutual need. In the coming months, Doc and his daughter became Daniel’s first Colorado friends, and Annie began referring to Blue’s human as Uncle Dan.
A few seasons came and went before Blue’s inevitable aging became a descent into lethargy. He seldom ate, and when Daniel accompanied him outdoors, Blue contented himself just staring off into the distance for long periods of time. When for a few days Blue struggled to walk, Daniel lovingly carried him to the Jeep for the short trip to the Hayworth Clinic.
Daniel cradled Blue in his lap in the same room where Annie had persuaded him they were meant for each other. Now those bright blue eyes that had given him his name had a vacant look about them. Daniel prayed silently for more time. Weeks. A few months maybe. The wait for the verdict wasn’t a long one when he heard, “We’re at the end.”
Daniel turned as his friend entered the room and closed the door. Doc Hayworth had been a long-distance runner since his high school days, and sitting or standing, his presence gave others the sense he was tightly coiled, anxious to be out on back country roads instead of at the town’s only diner or in a small, windowless room as he was now. Despite Doc’s occasional beseeching, the immigrant from Tennessee never laced up and joined him.
“Weeks? Months?” Daniel asked.
“A few days, maybe.” Doc leaned against the wall, hands shoved into the front pockets of his scrubs. “Impossible to tell for certain.”
“Is he in pain?”
“He is.”
“A lot?”
“Not unbearable. If he’s not moving, that is. Or being moved. Otherwise, there’s pain he shouldn’t have to endure.”
Daniel sat motionless. “What are you saying?”
“It’s your decision. But if he were mine, I wouldn’t move him again. He’s comfortable now. Why not remember him this way?”
Daniel felt the walls of the small room close in on him, and thought the air had taken on an unpleasant staleness as he drew deep breaths.
“I should let you put him down. Is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Blue lifted his head, and Daniel’s body tensed as the harsh reality sank in.
“Doesn’t sound like there’s any choice.”
Doc Hayworth shook his head in concurrence.
“I want some time alone with him.”
“Certainly,” Doc replied, and dimmed the lights as he left.
Tears flowed as Daniel remembered all that Blue had meant to him in their few years together. Time that passed all too quickly. He couldn’t imagine a life without him, and knew there wouldn’t be one for very long after today. When the door opened ten minutes later, Daniel didn’t bother to look up.
“Hi, Uncle Dan,” the soft voice said. “My dad told me. May I sit with you?”
Annie closed the door and pulled up a metal chair on plastic casters to sit beside him. She removed the red and white bandana loosely tied around her neck. He mouthed thank you, and she sat quietly as he wiped his tears before handing it back. She brushed away a tangle of red hair to reveal jade green eyes framing a slightly upturned nose.
“Annie, why are you here?”
“Because I don’t want you to be alone, that’s why.”
“And you know what’s going to happen?”
She gently touched the back of Blue’s neck. “I do.”
“You’re sure you want to be here for this?”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Like I said. You shouldn’t be alone.”
They both looked toward the door as Annie’s father entered. He had one hand behind his back as he sat on a stool and slowly rolled over to where one of his knees touched one of Daniel’s.
“Ready?” he asked.
Daniel nodded. When he saw the syringe, he averted his eyes, then closed them. He opened them a few seconds later when he felt a small hand reach to hold his.
Before departing, Doc placed a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder, leaving Daniel and Annie to watch as Blue’s lifeless eyes closed for the last time. Still holding his hand, with her other Annie gave Daniel a card on which she’d written in childish cursive: Psalm 36:6: You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
“What does this mean?”
“It means Blue’s gone to heaven. Or on his way. Says so right there in the Bible.”
They were both quiet for several seconds before Annie continued.
“A long time ago, I was maybe six or seven, when one of my dad’s patients died, my mother helped me write a letter to God tellin’ him to watch out for Rusty. That was the dog’s name. I thought it would help to put Rusty’s picture in, too. So we did. He was a Lab mix. Anyway, later on, after my mother died, my Sunday School teacher told me God always knows and will be waiting for our pets. She wrote down that Bible verse for me. I wrote more letters for other dogs. I stopped when I got older and got busy with other things helpin’ my dad.”
Daniel looked at the card again before slipping it into the front pocket of his flannel shirt.
“May I ask you something, Uncle Dan?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know where you’re gonna bury him?”
Her question jolted him; he held Blue even tighter.
“No idea. Hadn’t planned for this to happen today.”
Squeezing his hand, she asked, “May I help?”
He nodded.
“What’s the most special place for the two of you? At your home.”
He took some time answering. “The front porch, I guess.”
“Well, that won’t work. Second most?”
“Kitchen.”
“No. Try again.”
He finally understood. “The swing behind the house.”
“I think that’s where he belongs. Don’t you?”
“I guess. Yeah, that’ll be fine.”
Annie released his hand as he started to get up. “May I go with you?”
“Why?”
“If you’ll let me,” she answered, standing and looking up at him, “I want to finish Blue’s journey with you. Or would you rather be alone?”
“No, I don’t think I would.”
“Okay, then. I’ll get a blanket for him. One of mine.”
Annie sat on the swing and watched Daniel slowly shovel the ground just outside the edge of the inlaid bricks beneath it. Neither spoke until when he stopped to rest, he asked if she really believed what she wrote on the card.
“I do,” she answered, holding the blanketed Blue in her lap. “Don’t you?”
“Hadn’t thought about it.”
“Well, I don’t know how long it takes, but it’s been long enough. He’s there by now. You know, in heaven.”
“You sound very certain.”
“Well, it’s what I believe.” Her best grownup voice. “And who’s to say otherwise?”
Who, indeed? he thought.
“Say, do you know who Mark Twain is?”
Daniel leaned against the shovel, taking in her schoolgirl’s innocence.
“Yes, Annie, I do. Why?”
“Well, he once wrote that if dogs don’t go to heaven, he wants to go where they go. Or something like that.” She paused. “I just thought you might like to know that, too.”
Despite the day, and the task at hand, Daniel couldn’t suppress a smile as he resumed digging. When he finished, he asked, “Do you want to keep your blanket?”
“No. I want it to stay with him.”
“That’s very kind. Thank you.”
After Blue was laid to rest, and he listened to the prayer she offered while holding his hand, he drove her back to the clinic. When she opened the Jeep door, he thanked her for helping him.
“That’s what I’m here for, Uncle Dan.” Before she closed the door, she added, “See you again soon.”
Nice of her to say, he thought, as he drove away. My business with them, and everyone else on this earth, is done.
Daniel parked his Jeep in the garage, went briefly into the house, and returned to the swing. Looking at the mound of freshly turned dirt, thoughts of self-pity and loathing the world around him spread through his mind like thorny vines. They pricked his memory as he bitterly recalled praying for Mallory’s young life to be spared. He kicked the ground, propelling the swing higher.
All for naught. Now, Blue’s gone. That’s it, he thought, a revolver resting in his lap. Nothing left. Nothing and no one to live for.
Long, familiar shadows crept across the ground in front of him. Emotionally and physically drained by Blue’s passing, Daniel trudged back into the house, set the handgun on the center island in the kitchen, and drifted into the study where he collapsed on the couch. He was awakened by a ringing phone. He listened to the answering machine engage as he stumbled into the kitchen, still drowsy from a night of fitful sleep.
“Daniel, Doc here. We’ve got some unfinished paperwork from yesterday. It’ll only take a few minutes, and you’d be doing us a great favor if you could come by today since we’ll close tomorrow for a two-week vacation.” The message ended with the “please come today” request repeated and sounding more urgent.
Why today, Daniel thought? Do them a favor? Sure, why the hell not. Probably want me to pay the bill right away for killing my best friend.
He pushed the delete button, then picked up the loaded revolver and returned it to the nightstand next to his bed. He waited until early afternoon before driving to the clinic.
What’s the hurry, anyway?
When he arrived, instead of the business office, Daniel was shown to the same room as the day before. He opened the door and saw Annie sitting in a corner with a tiny puppy in her lap. Before he could say anything, or retreat, Doc gently nudged him from behind. They entered the room together, and the door closed behind them.
“What’s this all about?” Daniel asked.
“You might say history repeating itself,” Doc answered.
“Explain.”
“Another orphan, like Blue. Same breed. But much different. Six months old, but from its size, you’d think it’s half that. Needs a lot of care every day. Feeding. Medicine. Even being at ease around people. Won’t survive without it.”
Although certain of the answer, still he asked, “And I’m here because …?”
“We’ve tried every other possibility. You know. Adoption. Even offering our services for free. Came up empty. No takers. It’s you, or—”
“Or what?”
“Or we’ll have to put her down.”
Daniel backed away, reaching for the door.
“Doc, I can’t do it. I feel bad for the dog, for you”—he saw the tears in Annie’s eyes—“for Annie. Really, I do. But I can’t. I just can’t. You should’ve told me what this was about when you called. Before you got me here. I’m sorry. But this isn’t going to happen. Not with me.”
He pushed Doc Hayworth’s lean, muscular body aside, opened the door, and fled the room.
Daniel sat on the floor with his back resting against the living room wall, his outstretched legs crossed at the ankles, nursing a second tall glass of bourbon. An image formed in his mind of a bearded Ernest Hemingway, his literary idol, holding a shotgun in the last minutes of his life.
The knock on the front door so soft he thought he’d imagined it. He heard it again, this time louder, more persistent. The last thing he wanted to see stood on the other side of the screen door.
“Oh, no. No way.” He started to close the door on Annie, holding the puppy. “Not gonna happen.”
“Please. Please, Uncle Dan,” she pleaded. “Let me talk with you. Just for a minute. Then I’ll leave. Promise I will.”
He slowly pulled on the wooden door as if it were made of lead and motioned her to follow him into the study. Daniel flopped down on the sofa; Annie remained standing.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
“Okay, you know where it is.”
Fidgeting in place, she made no effort to move.
“What?”
She shrugged her tiny shoulders. “I can’t do that and hold her at the same time.”
Daniel reached to accept the bundled blanket, and a few moments later was surprised to hear the back door open and close.
What the . . .? he thought.
When Annie didn’t return, he walked through the kitchen and mud room, the puppy cradled in one arm, still in the blanket. He opened the door, stepped into the backyard, and approached the swing where Annie was sitting.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Visiting Blue.”
“I see.” He looked at the puppy squirming in his arms. “What about this one?”
“Oh, I wanted you to have some time with her. You know, get acquainted. You left in such a hurry.”
“Annie, you know why I left. I made that very clear to you and to your father. Now you need to take it and go back.” He thought for a moment. “Wait a minute. Where is your father?”
“At the clinic.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“Rode my bike. I have a basket on the front for the puppy.”
“But it’s at least a couple of miles.”
“I know. But worth it. I hope.”
Daniel was suddenly aware he towered over the young girl in the swing, yet she seemed unintimidated by either that or his words. Still, he stepped back and softened his tone.
“You hope what?” he asked.
“That you’ll change your mind.”
“Not a chance, Annie. Not a chance. And does your father know you’re here?”
“He does.”
“Okay, I’ll call and tell him you’re on your way home. Here, you take the puppy.”
“Uncle Dan, before you do that, will you please just sit here with me for a few minutes? Then you can call my dad, and he’ll come get me. Please?”
His effort to hand off the puppy rebuffed when she crossed her arms. He sat next to her. The left strap of her overalls caught his eye.
“What does your pin say?”
She reached to touch it with her fingertips. “I believe in angels.”
A poignant, distant memory of an embroidered pillow, one that supported Mallory’s head as she lay dying, tugged at him. “Do you?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
Those few words took him back to another time, another place. He sensed that in her own way, Annie’s childish faith was as strong as Mallory’s. Far stronger than his had ever been.
“Uncle Dan.”
“What?”
“I helped you with Blue, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did. And I’ll be forever grateful. I want you to know that.”
“Then would you do me a favor?”
What happened next, he never saw coming. “If I can. What is it?”
“Keep the puppy for one night. Just one night. If tomorrow morning you don’t want her, I’ll come back and take her away.”
He recovered quickly. Or thought he did.
“I wouldn’t know how to take care of it. You know, all its problems your father talked about. There’s no food here, only what’s left of Blue’s old dog blend. And certainly no medicine. Otherwise, I would.”
The last thing he expected to see was a smile spreading across her face.
“No problem. I have the puppy food, and I can show you how to give her medicine. Brought them with me. My bike’s basket is big.”
“Well, I have to say, I’m impressed. Thought of everything, have you?”
“Almost everything.” The smile disappeared as she narrowed her eyes.
“What haven’t you thought of?” he asked.
“You were my idea. My only one.” Annie teared up. “She can’t travel. If you don’t adopt her, my dad will put her down when I get back home ‘cause we’re leaving tomorrow. Dad’s helper is also going on vacation with her family, so they’ll be no one to take care of her. Like he told you, we’ve tried everything else.”
The mature-beyond-her-years girl sitting beside him had pushed her way into his life much the same as Mallory had when they were in the sixth grade by helping with his school locker his first day at a new elementary school. Two strong women, almost a generation apart, each stronger than him. What are the odds, he thought?
“Annie.”
“What?”
“I’ll give it a try. But only until you get back. We’ll talk again then. Meantime, you need to be thinking of something else. You and your father have to try harder. Okay?”
She hugged his neck before jumping down from the swing and heading toward her bike. “Be right back.”
Before Annie returned, Daniel stroked the puppy’s back and decided to round out this day as he had the one before when he was at the clinic, wondering if God would be surprised to hear from him again so soon.
“This is how it plays out?” Daniel said aloud. “My Mallory, who you didn’t spare despite me pleading with you, believed in angels. Not even an extra day or two with Blue I prayed for. Now a girl named Annie, who also believes in angels and whose young mother died of cancer like Mallory, forces a sick puppy on me to take Blue’s place. One that will die without me living to take care of it for the next, what, ten or twelve years. That’s it? That’s your answer? That’s your plan to save my sorry life?”
When Annie returned from vacation, Daniel sought approval to name the puppy Baby Blue, BB for short. It wasn’t long before they knew she’d grow to be much smaller than Blue, and when all their sit-stay-come training efforts failed, they realized she was deaf, creating an added layer of dependency.
Daniel offered to provide transportation, but Annie insisted on riding her bike out and back at least twice a week to help him nurture Baby Blue to health. On their daily walks, Daniel often carried BB part of the way when she acted like her little legs couldn’t keep up, all the while suspecting he was being conned much the same as Annie’s clever plea for just one overnight stay. When they sat in the swing during Annie’s visits, BB always went to lay across Blue’s grave.
One afternoon, Annie talked about her plans for college in a few years before joining her father’s clinic. As he listened, Daniel realized he couldn’t put off earning a living much longer. His only option, as he saw things, was a return to Nashville’s Music Row in the hope he’d be favorably remembered and given a second chance in a fiercely competitive environment.
Weeks later, Daniel knew the time had come to leave. He listed his cabin home and surrounding land with a local real estate company, and carefully packed his clothing and personal items in the back of his Jeep.
He couldn’t count the number of times he’d sat in the porch rocking chair, but knew this would be his last. Doc and Daniel had already said their goodbyes earlier in the day, and Annie sat in the other rocker, her feet bouncing rhythmically off the wooden floor.
“Annie, thank you for coming today. It meant a lot to me.”
“I’m going to miss you, Uncle Dan. And Baby Blue.”
“We’ll miss you, too. After all, if it weren’t for you, she and I wouldn’t be together, making this journey. And we have something for you to remember us by.”
Annie cried when she opened the package and hugged the gift to her chest. Something Daniel had once shown her – Mallory’s I believe in angels pillow.
An hour later, Annie waved tearfully to the disappearing cloud of dust kicked up by Daniel’s Jeep.
As he drove away, Daniel prayed someday his path would cross someone he could help as Annie had helped him. To give them a second chance.
END
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