The Slow March of Time
The blinds were slats of white plastic. They fell shut with a rattle as Michael Guerin roughly tugged at the cord that had held them in place, cutting off his view of the darkened sky bejeweled with stars. He turned his back to the window, his eyes ranging out over his living room. The fire cast wavering flecks of light and shadow across the furniture drawn around the hearth.
Maria stood next to him. She dropped a kiss against his weathered cheek, like air whispering against his flesh. "Sit down, Michael. The children are here to see you," she told him. Her hand rested in his. Holding her still felt like a dream. His fingers tightened against her hand, his thumb rubbing against the smooth metal of the wedding band that had graced her finger for so very many years.
Michael blinked and then smiled. The children were indeed there. Two imps, blonde and smiling toothily, the continuation of the line he and Maria had begun with their own son. Michael settled down into his favourite armchair, holding his arms out to his grandchildren. With a delighted squeal, both of them scrambled towards him.
He frowned at Emma and Jason thoughtfully. "They're looking awfully pale," he commented.
Emma's small hand reached up, lightly tapping against Michael's nose. "Silly Gramps!" she giggled. "We look the same as always." She laughed as Michael lifted her towards his knee. She was as light as air in his hands.
"Don't you mean _Grumps?_" Jason grinned, exposing the gap left behind by the departure of one of his baby teeth. He didn't protest as Michael pulled him up onto the chair, settling the boy next to him.
"Grumps?" Michael commented mildly. He shot a glance towards Maria, she flickered alongside the dancing fire. "Have you been telling tales again, Maria?" he asked her. His hand ruffled through Jason's hair while the boy laughingly protested the blurring of his carefully formed spikes.
Maria merely grinned at him.
Emma nodded, wisps of blonde hair swirling around her face. "That's it, Gramps! We want a story." She looked up at him, her lower lip thrusting out into a pout that Michael suspected she had picked up from watching the ease with which Maria influenced him with the very same.
"Another one?" Michael replied with mock uncertainty.
Jason's head shook in time with his younger sister's. "We want another one before it gets too late to hear any more," he informed Michael. "And you tell the bestest stories!"
"You've got me there," Michael smiled. Emma rested her head against Michael's chest. "What haven't I told you all about yet," he mused.
Emma spoke against his chest, listening to the rattle that shuddered with his breath. "I want to hear about you an' Nanny," she stated with certainty.
Jason rolled his eyes. "They're always so mushy," he protested.
Michael caught Maria's eyes from across the room, and they both smiled. Before being subjected to the boy's view of their relationship, 'mushy' had rarely been used to describe he and Maria. Passionate, loud, confusing, or as Isabel had declared: 'strange. Utterly and completely _strange!_'
"Nu uh!" Emma shot back hurriedly. She lifted her face from Michael's chest long enough to stick her tongue out at her brother. "Mommy says that they're a... an... antsy!"
"Angsty?" Maria suggested, laughter tinging her voice.
Emma shook her head. "_Antsy_," she maintained.
"You want to hear about your Nanny and me, do you?" Michael said thoughtfully.
"Nothing mushy!" Jason demanded.
"And nothing above a PG rating," Maria added. She waved off Michael's protest before he could form it. "Remember when Liz and Max brought their boys over? Remember Liz and Max having to stay up with them all night after you told them a story littered with Topolsky related events?"
Michael refrained from replying. "There was a long time ago, before your Nanny and I were married, when I almost lost her for good," he began.
"Really?" Emma asked, amazed at the thought of something so counter to everything she knew. "Why?"
"Because I was very, very stupid," he told her seriously.
"Aunt Isabel already told us _that_," Jason said.
"Isabel always was a smart woman," Maria commented.
Michael looked at his grinning wife and scowled lightly. "Shush, you! I'm the one telling the story here, remember?"
Maria laughed, her hand reaching out to rest upon Michael's.
"She was very upset with me because she thought I wasn't paying enough attention to her."
Jason gnawed on his lower lip. "You're _always_ paying attention to Nanny!" he exclaimed. "It's kinda gross, really."
"I was even dumber back then than Isabel says I am now," Michael shrugged. "I spent so much time looking at the stars, waiting for something to happen, that I didn't pay enough attention to what I had with me. I focused on trying to get home instead of making sure that I had a home here."
"You didn't like it here?" Emma asked worriedly.
"I didn't for a very long time. I got so used to not liking things that I couldn't shake myself out of it when things got better. I spent hours at that very window," Michael said, gesturing towards that which had been hidden behind the closed blinds, "just watching the sky. Your Nanny had enough of that! The day she left, she told me that I had promised to stop running, but now we were just standing still. She picked up her suitcase and walked out of the door..." Michael blinked back the moisture in his eyes.
Jason looked back and forth between his grandparents with wide eyes. "Rough! How'd you get her back, Gramps?"
Michael looked down at the boy, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "I..." he stumbled to a stop. His breath suddenly felt ragged, worse than he could remember it ever being.
"He didn't. I came back myself," Maria stated. The fire was dying down. He could no longer see her face in the encroaching darkness.
Michael swallowed heavily, fighting down a wave of dizziness. He looked down at Emma and stiffened. There was a small ghost on his lap in the shape of his grandchild. He could see his own hand through the faint suggestion of her ribcage. "Maria?" he choked out.
She rose. "Enough, children! Gramps is getting awfully tired. Your parents will get you both ready for bed." Maria tugged at the children's hands, and they followed her to their feet. Maria's hand rested on Michael's shoulder as they watched the two children scurry from the room into the hallway.
"Marcus and Eileen are here?" Michael asked, wearily rubbing at his eyes.
Maria sighed. "We've made it this far, Michael. I won't have you doing this now!" Her hands rubbed at his tense shoulders, so light he could barely feel her.
"Do what?"
"Questioning. Just let it go for a while longer... _please._"
Michael's eyes clenched shut, his teeth biting into his lower lip. He could picture the door in his mind as she had walked out. It hadn't opened to her again. Michael's chest felt tight. Air burned in his lungs.
"Let it go. I love you," Maria's voice soothed him.
His eyes opened, and Michael found himself looking into Maria's familiar face. A memory fluttered at the edges of his mind before fading back into nothingness. "Maria?"
She smiled at him. "Come to bed, Michael," Maria told him. Her hand waited for his.
***
He lay in bed, the sheets drawn up to his chest. The shade was drawn tight against the stars he had once devoured with his eyes. He could hear the sickly rattle of his own breath in the silence of his bedroom. Maria sat next to him, the bed unruffled by her presence on top of it.
"I'm sorry," Michael told her. "I wish I could actually tell you... I'm so sorry."
She smiled at him gently. "Just believe for a little more."
Michael's breath caught, hovering at his lips for a long moment. It escaped him in a long hiss as his body stilled.
Maria had already flickered out of existence.
~end~
(January 2000)