He's kept himself up at night many a time. Insomnia had become routine, habitual. Tears shed silently in the midst of night because she was gone. Three years it had been since their last night in each other's arms. It was expected, after years of lying pale in bed, she went in peace. He never left her side in those years. How could he? Those blue eyes had never lost their vibrance, nor her hope.
He goes back to the day they found out often.
A tall male doctor walked in with sorrowful dark eyes and a clipboard, "Mr. Goldsworthy, if you could step out of the room,"
Clare's grasp on Eli's hand tightened as he attempted to exit. "Stay here," she whispered, looking to him, then the doctor, who nodded in agreement.
The man licked his lips before reading from the clipboard, "I-It looks like you have-" he cleared his throat, "you have relapsed."
Eli squeezed his wife's hand before blinking to let a tear fall. He looked to Clare, as her head bowed in sorrow. The doctor spoke up again with great remorse, "I regret to inform you that it is t-terminal, Mrs. Goldsworthy."
Clare began to quietly cry. Eli questioned, "What can we do?"
The man shook his head, "We can help numb the pain, but that's just about it. I-I'm sorry."
He gave the two a few moments to grieve and walked in minutes later with a less-grim gait and new papers.
"We have other news, it seems," he started adjusting his newfound papers on his board. Clare hastily wiped a tear and looked up expectantly. "After the scans, it appears that you are pregnant."
The next few months were a blur for the two. Pregnancy during cancer was risky for both Clare and the child, and abortion was an option often brought up, but she always responded with a strong no.
After a tricky eight months, Clare had given birth to very small premature baby girl. They named her Meredith, a name they had both been fond of for some time.
By Meredith's first birthday, Clare had only the strength to make the little girl a birthday cake and watch as the child blew out the candle and giggle with great mirth.
Just weeks after, Clare passed in grace.
Three years later, Eli still lay in an empty bed, silent tears leaving his eyes gracefully just as Clare had. A quiet knock on the door is followed by a four-year-old Meredith dragging a plush bunny in the doorway. Eli sits up. "C'mere, kid."
Meredith runs to her father's embrace, her cinnamon curls falling over her face. Her blue-green eyes are glistening with tears. "I had a bad dream, Daddy. A monster got me sick and I died, Daddy. I died. That's how Mommy died," she cries into her father's shoulder. "I don't wanna die."
Eli shivers at the girl's words. That's how Mommy died. I don't want to die. "You're okay, Meredith. Mommy's in a good place now. And she loves you more than anything. And so do I. I promise, Blue Eyes." Eli assures the crying child, pecking a kiss on her forehead. The girls smiles at him, wiping her tears. Eli smiles with an idea. "I think what you need is a bedtime story."
Meredith jumps with excitement. She'd always been one for stories. "Can you read me the Mommy and Daddy story? Pleeeease?"
Eli inwardly laughs at what she calls Romeo and Juliet. Eli had begun reading it to her a few weeks ago before bed, and she was enthralled. Eli had told the girl that Romeo and Juliet was similar to Eli and Clare's relationship as teenagers, thus the "Mommy and Daddy Story".
"Yeah, okay," Eli laughs, "I'll meet you there."
Meredith squeals in content and skips off to her room, tucking herself into her loudly purple covers. Eli rummages through drawers to find Clare's old copy of Romeo and Juliet, previously Ms. Dawes's copy, but at their marriage, the woman gave it to the couple as a gift. He finds the leather-bound copy and brings it to the girl's room.
Seating himself in a dainty purple plush chair, he flips open the book. "Now, where did we leave off?"
Meredith thinks for a minute. "Romeo was going to Juliet's house to say hi," she announces in confidence.
Eli finds the right page and begins, "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." Eli pauses briefly and smiles. Juliet is the sun. Clare was Eli's sun, his stars, his everything. How wonderful it was to have Romeo understand.
Meredith notices the pause, "What's that mean, Daddy?" She asks it with immense interest. This was routine for Meredith to ask such questions. It was Shakespeare, after all. And she was only four.
"Romeo is saying how Juliet is beautiful, like the sun." Eli translates with a cheery smile.
"Was Mommy beautiful, like the sun?" Meredith asks, tucking a hanging lock of cinnamon hair behind her ear.
"Yes," Eli responds quickly and certainly, "she was very beautiful," he smooths down a curly lock of her auburn hair, identical to Clare's. "Just like you."
Meredith gasps in amazement, "I look like Mommy?" She asks, like it's an honour.
Eli nods and continues, "Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her maid art far more fair than she: be not her maid, since she is envious; her vestal livery is but sick and green, and none but fools do wear it; cast it off." Eli looks to Meredith, expecting a bored and tired face, but instead seeing her in a state of intense interest. He chuckles inwardly and proceeds, "O, that she knew she were! She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that? Her eye discourses; I will answer it. I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks: Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night." Eli's eyes begin to fill with quiet tears as he reads. He thinks of all the times he has thought these things of Clare. How Eli was just too lucky to have Clare, such a beautiful vibrant being. The lovers had often quoted the play in their high school years, and Eli had been smooth enough to slip a few Romeo lines into their wedding vows. And still to this day, such words are still a part of the family life.
"Keep going, Daddy!" Meredith demands anticipatingly, obviously more interested than any four-year-old should be in Shakespeare.
"See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!" Eli thinks as Romeo, how valuable it would be to be with the sun.
Meredith tries to analyze the last three lines. "Daddy," Meredith shuts her eyes in pensive thought, "do you think like Romeo? Is Mommy Juliet?"
Eli stifles a tear, "Yeah, I like to think so," he smiles as he continues, "it's Juliet's line next."
"I want to read it!" Meredith reaches her hands out to see the page. Eli points to the line as the girl tries to sound out each letter. "A-wait-Ayy…Ay…m-me. Ay me!"
"Good job, Mere!" Eli praises the girl's reading. He finds his place again and proceeds, "She speaks: O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air."
With that, Eli's mind begins to break down into thoughts of his Clare. O speak again, bright angel! A forlorn tear leaves Eli's eye. If only, he thinks, if only she could speak again.
"Daddy?" Meredith shyly murmurs, "are you okay?"
Eli looks to her with a small smile and damp eyes. "I think that's enough for tonight. Sleep tight, Blue Eyes." He kisses her forehead and leaves, turning the light off as he leaves. "Goodnight."
Thanks for reading! Please review! *kiss*