After dinner, I become afraid for I know the bell has tolled this evening. The sun has long since set and the thief is about to come, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. So I stare at her and wait and live a lifetime in these last remaining moments.
The clock ticks.
Nothing.
I take her in my arms and we hold each other.
Nothing.
I feel her tremble and I whisper in her ear.
Nothing.
I tell her for the last time this evening that I love her.
And the thief comes.
It always amazes me how quickly it happens. Even now, after all this time. For as she holds me, she begins to blink rapidly and shake her head. Then, turning towards the corner of the room, she stares for a long time, concern etched on her face.
No! my mind screams. Not yet! Not now… not when we're so close! Not tonight! Any night but tonight… Please! I can't take it again! It isn't fair.. It isn't fair…
But once again, it is to no avail.
"Those people," she finally says, pointing, "are staring at me. Please make them stop."
The gnomes. A pit rises in my stomach, hard and full. My mouth goes dry and I feel my heart pounding. It is over, I know. This, the evening confusion that affects my wife, is the hardest part of all. For when it comes, she is gone, and sometimes I wonder whether she and I will ever love again.
"There's no one there, Allie," I say, trying to fend off the inevitable.
She doesn't believe me. "They're staring at me. You can't see them?"
"No," I say, and she thinks for a moment.
"Well, they're right there," she says, "and they're staring at me."
With that, she begins to talk to herself, and moments later, when I try to comfort her, she flinches with wide eyes.
"Who are you?" she cries in panic, her face becoming whiter. "What are you doing here?" She backs away from me, her hands in a defensive position, and then she says the most heartbreaking words of all. "Go away! Stay away from me!" She is pushing the gnomes away from her, terrified, oblivious of my presence.
I stand and cross the room to her bed. I am weak now, my legs ache, and there is a strange pain in my side. It is a struggle to press the button to call the nurses, for my fingers are throbbing and seem frozen together, but I finally succeed. They will be here soon now, I know, and I wait for them.
I sit by the bed with an aching back and start to cry as I pick up the notebook. I am tired now, so I sit, alone and apart from my wife. And when the nurses come in they see two people they must comfort. A woman shaking in fear and the old man who loves her more deeply than life itself crying softly in the corner, his face in his hands.
BY THE following week, my life had pretty much returned to normal. Or at least as normal as my life could be. Reading to Allie, who was unable to recognize me at any time, reading to others, wandering the halls. Lying awake at night and sitting by my heater in the morning. I found a strange comfort in the predictability of my life.
On a cool, foggy morning eight days after she and I had spent our day together, I woke early, as is my custom, and pottered around my desk, alternately looking at photographs and reading letters written many years before. At least I tried to. I couldn't concentrate too well because I had a headache, so I put them aside and went to sit in my chair by the window to watch the sun come up. Allie would be awake in a couple of hours, I knew, and I wanted to be refreshed, for reading all day would only make my head hurt more.
I closed my eyes for a few minutes then, opening them, I watched my old friend, the creek, roll by my window. Unlike Allie I had been given a room where I could see it, and it has never failed to inspire me. It is a contradiction this creek-a hundred thousand years old but renewed with each rainfall. It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.
It happened as I sat in the chair, just as the sun peeped over the horizon. My hand, I noticed, started to tingle, something it had never done before. I started to lift it, but I was forced to stop when my head pounded again, this time hard, almost as if I had been hit in the head with a hammer. I closed my eyes tightly. My hand stopped tingling and began to go numb, as if my nerves had been severed somewhere on my lower arm. A shooting pain rocked my head and seemed to flow down my neck and into every cell of my body, like a tidal wave, crushing and wasting everything in its path.
I lost my sight and I heard what sounded like a train roaring inches from my head, and I knew that I was having a stroke. The pain coursed through my body like a lightning bolt, and in my last remaining moments of consciousness I pictured Allie, lying in her bed, waiting for the story I would never read, lost and confused, completely and totally unable to help herself.
I WAS UNCONSCIOUS on and off for days, and in those moments when I was awake I found myself hooked to machines, two bags of fluid hanging near the bed. I could hear the faint hum of machines, sometimes making sounds I could not recognize, and found myself lulled to never-never land time and time again.
I could see the concern in the doctors' faces as they scanned the charts and adjusted the machines. Grim faces would prelude their predictions-"loss of speech, loss of movement, paralysis." Another chart notation, another beep of a strange machine, and they'd leave, never knowing I heard every word. I tried not to think of these things afterwards, but instead concentrated on Allie, bringing a picture of her to my mind whenever I could. I tried to feel her touch, hear her voice, and when I did tears would fill my eyes because I didn't know if I would be able to hold her again. This was not how I'd imagined it would end. I'd always assumed I would go last.
I drifted in and out of consciousness for days until another foggy morning when my promise to Allie spurred my body once again. I opened my eyes and saw a room full of flowers, and their scent motivated me further. I looked for the buzzer, struggled to press it, and a nurse arrived thirty seconds later, followed closely by Dr. Barnwell.
"I'm thirsty," I said with a raspy voice, and Dr. Barnwell smiled broadly.
"Welcome back," he said, "I knew you'd make it."
TWO WEEKS LATER I am able to leave the hospital, though I am only half a man now. The right side of my body is weaker than the left. This, they tell me, is good news, for the paralysis could have been total. Sometimes, it seems, I am surrounded by optimists.
The bad news is that my hands prevent me from using either my cane or wheelchair, so I must march now to my own unique cadence to keep upright. Not left-right-left as in my youth, or even the shuffle-shuffle of late, but rather slow-shuffle, slide-the-right, slow-shuffle. I am on an epic adventure now when I travel the halls.
When I return to my room, I know I will not sleep. I breathe deeply and smell the springtime fragrances that filter through the open window. There is a slight chill in the air and I find that I am invigorated by the change in temperature. Evelyn, one of the many nurses here, helps me to the chair by the window. She puts her hand on my shoulder and pats it gently. She says nothing, and by her silence I know that she is staring out of the window. Then she leans forward and tenderly kisses me on the cheek.
"It's good to have you back. Allie's missed you and so have the rest of us. We were all praying for you because it's just not the same around here when you're gone." She smiles at me and touches my face before she leaves. I say nothing.
The stars are out tonight and the crickets are singing. As I sit, I wonder if anyone outside can see me, this prisoner of flesh. I search the courtyard, looking for signs of life, but there is nothing. Even the creek is still. In the darkness it looks like empty space and I find that I'm drawn to its mystery. I watch for hours, and as I do I see the reflection of clouds on the water. A storm is coming and in time the sky will turn silver, like dusk again.