'It's mercy, compassion and forgiveness that I lack...' - The Bride, Kill Bill Vol. I
Chapter Five
Mr. Anumis finally visited me, the first time since sentencing me to solitary confinement. He was gloating.
"Shall I give you the likely dates of your trial or would you prefer to wait until the dates have been released?" He asked.
After the writing session, I was nearly delirious, feeling so relieved. "Wait, please."
He looks surprised. Satisfied, I stood up to greet him and the silence reigns for several minutes. "In that case," he said slowly. "You have a guest awaiting you."
I don't believe him. It is Mr. Khan who makes such announcements and it takes all three of them to escort me to the visiting room. But I am a prisoner here and have very little choice in whether I should come or go. So I followed him.
He led me down the hallway and took a turning to the right, which he has never done before. I would feel frightened but what Francis had written is quite true. I am a dead man already, and as the Ghanaians say, 'a dead goat fears no machete.' If anything, I felt some regret that I had not finished the writing, but no matter. What I have done is probably enough. Probably, for someone like Francis.
I am courteously led into a room. It was quite dark, and also quite large, bigger than my cell at any rate. Quite suddenly, I was felled to the floor.
Before the pain could register, I felt another boot make contact with my abdomen. It is a good thing, I thought dreamily to myself, that I hadn't eaten for a day or so beforehand.
It takes another blow, and I fall unconscious.
Dear Father,
You would be very pleased to hear that I managed to successfully beat down one of my lecturers on his view of Aristotle's Book Zeta. I know I shouldn't, but I feel very proud of myself. It just goes to show that all that work was worth something after all: if you remember, none of the Elders approved of me concentrating on the Classics and Philosophy, but this should count for something. The lecturer was very impressed with me.
The last I heard, Ms Glow is enjoying herself and so is Cronan. Plans for moving away seem to be put on hold for the moment. We have had no more visits from old phoenixes.
That is really all that I wanted to say.
Yours affectionately,
Francis.
When I come to, I am lying in a pool of my own blood. The pain is indescribable. It feels as if I've been stretched on racks and then pummelled for all I was worth, which I suppose I was. I can feel that several bones are broken and my body is exhausted.
"Up you get," says a gentle voice. It is Mr. Khan.
I hear someone else swear and whoever it is steps around to my other side and gingerly lifts up the other arm. Pain shoots through me. I feel as though I have been set on fire, then doused in ice cold water. Either my eyes aren't open or I am still drifting into consciousness because I cannot see a thing. I recognise the voice as Octavius McGill's. "Damn," he says. "What was he trying to do... kill him?"
"Probably. No chance of a trial appearance that way," Mr. Khan says grimly. They lead me along a corridor for a bit before entering another room which is so light that it makes my eyes sting. I didn't know that any rooms were like this in Azkaban prison. It is almost pleasant. "Damn it, I said to him, the man's a criminal, I know that, but one of us has got to do the right thing and is this how we show our moral superiority, eh? But he's just wanted a go at him since he got here..."
I am laid gently onto a bed and my limbs rearranged carefully. Someone hisses in despair.
"What do you mean?"
"Well... this Snape... if that's his name... wasn't no ordinary Death Eater. Some sort of spy for the Ministry an' all that. You think he's just some twisted murderer, an' for all I know he might be, but he certainly hides it well if that's true... he's the only reason we haven't got more of his sort to deal with..."
"His sort?"
"Death Eaters. Scum the lot of them. This Snape's the best of them by a long way but even so... there's not really much difference between them. He'd probably have done just as much as they did if he was ordered to by that You-Know-Who..."
I feel my flesh knit itself back together and the wet blood disappears.
"So he just hates him because he's a Death Eater?"
"No. I hate him because he's a Death Eater, for all he's a good sport. Always polite and interested in what I say. With Anumis it isn't anything like that... I think it's something to do with family... Bad blood an' all that... It's why he hates that Francis so much. Don't you hear them argue every time he comes here?"
Octavius swears again. "It's always something like that isn't it?"
"Yes. Stupid isn' it? Especially considering what a good kid that Francis is... don't think he'll be anything like his father..."
The older wounds are being cleaned and bandages applied. A pleasant smell tells me that some salve is being placed on my face. A quick tap of a wand and I wince as cartilage and bone grind about my nasal cavity. "Oh good, he's coming to," Mr. Khan says, actually pleased. "Mr. Snape? Well, I don't suppose you can talk back can you? I could take some advantage of this, you know," he seems to be smiling and both he and Octavius chuckle. I try to smile. What an insane place this is, I think to myself, where one can laugh after being beaten half to death. "Well, anyway. We're just taking care of your bones and cuts an' all that. I don't know what you're like internally, but it can't pretty, so it'll hurt a great deal, mind. But don't worry; you'll live."
"Thank you..." I try to say but they just chuckle again.
"Now there's no need to be like that..." Mr. Khan replies, laughter in his voice.
I don't know how long I am in the infirmary. Due to the injuries I suffered on my head, my two wards have discovered the four metal plates (another had been added as I grew and my skull enlarged) and were amusingly mystified. McGill nearly thought me to be proof of what strange experiments those muggle wizards - the dreaded scientists - had been up to. He is one to give Luna Lovegood a run for her money, he really is.
Mr. Khan is a very able nurse and Healer, I quickly discover, for all that he is a Squib, whilst Octavius proves to be better read than I thought he would be. It turns out that he excelled in Defence Against the Dark Arts ("but then I had a very unorthodox teacher," he explained. "my parents didn't want me to go to Hogwarts, they thought Dumbledore was too soft a touch on people like the Malfoys, Durmstrang wouldn't accept me - not pure-blooded enough, I think - and I didn't like the uniforms they wear in Beauxbatons so my great uncles and aunts had to teach me. Great-Uncle Alastor was especially rigourous-"
"Uncle Alastor?" Mr. Khan jerked theatrically and even I found it difficult to contain my surprise.
"Y-yes," Octavius stuttered and blushed. "Mad-Eye to his friends..."
Mr. Khan swore and reapplied my bandages, whistling in amazement).
None of them speak of Mr. Anumis in my presence and I only occasionally hear him passing the infirmary. They have given me a proper journal to write in now, rather than mere sheets of paper. After a few days of this and I am deemed fit enough to be returned to my cell. I had forgotten how cold the place was. Compared to the comfortable infirmary, it was like stepping out into the Arctic. When it was evident that what healing I had acquired was rapidly diminishing the longer I was kept in my cell (I developed tuberculosis at one point, a novel experience, if I say so myself) they consented to allow the minimum amount of fuel for me to burn and use to heat myself. It was barely a luxury, but it made a great difference. Although I am still cold, I am unlikely to die because of it.
How different my present circumstances are from the time when I would be freely welcomed in the Malfoy Manor and sit in comfortable chairs by a huge fire, drinking dark wine or port, eating savoury treats. I suppose if you believe in Karma, then I am a prime example of one fully repaying his debt.
My friendship with Lucius Malfoy was a relatively new one when I compare it to how I knew his famous cohorts for: I only really got to know him when he was in his final year in Hogwarts, and I in my third. I was never a very attractive child and many in my House stayed away from me as if they thought it was catching. Or maybe it was just the fact that I had a permanent scowl on my face. No matter, it was when I had left school and joined the Death Eaters that a friendship of sorts began to develop between us.
It was I who held back Lucius' hair when he vomited, the very first time he had tortured and killed someone. He had threatened me with death if I told anyone, but I gave him such a look that we both dissolved into grudging laughter and after that, our respect for one another grew. I have always known that it was him who saved me from death at the hands of an irate Dark Lord, though I feel I ought to say that I did much of the same for him. I tried to look after Draco (I am under no illusion as to whether I succeeded - as I have admitted, I was distracted from my sworn duty for the greater part of Draco's school career, which no doubt led to the disastrous happenings that took place as a consequence) and I like to believe that if Lucius knew of my own family, he would have done his best to protect them as well. Though I doubt that, somehow. But like I said, people are full of surprises, and it is something that I would like to believe.
There wasn't really much that we held back from one another. Of course he got to know of my general ancestry quite early on - even I wasn't that skilful as to hide it from him completely - but nevertheless stuck by me, even when I thought he would not. Of course I got to know of his family's dirty washing, so to speak, a privilege open to few. I knew of his own weaknesses, his penchant for wine and women as well as his brutal sadism.
I knew of his guilt that the fault for Draco not having had any siblings was his own, rather than Narcissa's as he liked to have it believed. The man was a wreck, but a true stoic. He bore with it and did his best, which I admired him for, although (now that I think about it) he had to considering how frequently he indulged himself in his carnal desires.
Most importantly, I knew of his love for his wife, of all things, the equally arrogant and desperate Narcissa Lestrange. Most people would think it strange: I know I certainly did, in spite of the equally deep affection I felt for my own partner at that time. But they did love each other, which might make up for the lack of affection he showed to Draco. It's ironic, but I think in trying to strengthen his son and have him grow into an adult with none of his father's vices, Lucius permanently weakened Draco. The boy grew up to be a spoilt brat with a tendency to extreme feelings at the worst of times. One minute he would be sobbing uncontrollably, the next childishly happy over some 'misfortune' he had inflicted on Potter, for instance. However, I must bear some of the fault as I did not help in the slightest: I succeeded in getting him very nearly killed after we took flight from Hogwarts, so there you are.
I was very sorry to hear that Lucius had died. I can only imagine what it must have been like, estranged on some island in the North Sea, away from family and friend alike, forbidden communication, only to be strangled in your prison cell...
Horrible. But what goes around comes around. I am beginning to consider myself lucky that I have survived long enough to write this. A half-blessing of the lowest grade, true, but a blessing nonetheless.
It is now midday. It can actually get quite warm here during the summer, and when the weather is fine this is usually my favourite time of day. But it is cloudy, dull and bitterly cold. I have been given a new coat to wear over my robes: it's very thick and manages to keep me warm to a greater extent. It doesn't help with all these memories that I have been bringing up again. I feel very old, tired and useless.
Were I any other man, I would feel regret, but I don't have time for that. I was no fool to begin with and am certainly less of one now. I knew what I was getting myself in for. What I didn't anticipate, and this could be said of anyone and everyone, was life itself. It's supposed to be lived but to live is barely a life. One is simply an automaton, whether you behave according to instinct, reason or faith. You can only take pleasure in the small things. The silly things; your child throwing their arms open to you, your lovers' glance (of derision, judgement, love or desire it matters not. It's the simply joy of it existing that thrills us). A ridiculous joke, meaningless debates... anything bigger than that, well, is just too hurtful to contemplate.
I am taken out for exercising and I am surprised to see Muggle ships in the distance. "Well, Mr. Anumis," I call over my shoulder, smiling at him, "would you look at that?"
Octavian and Mr Khan are apprehensive. Neither I nor Mr. Anumis has acknowledged one another since I was deemed fit enough to be exercised as usual. But I want to surprise them. I am a prisoner, he is a guard. This is the only way things could be.
Mr. Anumis steps forward gravely and stops by my side to look out at the ships, his eyes sharp. "For the Baltics," he said. "Headed for the Baltics. Maybe from Russia. Stopped at Finland probably... hm. Just imagine, Mr Snape: all the smoked herring you could eat." He smiles sardonically. "Very interesting." He walks back to his previous spot to keep guard. Very interesting, I think. You are absolutely right, Mr. Anumis.
Over the next few weeks, I further recover. I am visited by Francis twice. He is still giddy with excitement at the though of having just graduated. He intends to stay on and get a PhD.
"Think of me, won't you?" He asks, suddenly becoming my five year old son again. I am so touched that I don't know what to say. His eyes begged me for the reassurance that I knew I couldn't give him, but I answered his question - "Of course, Fran," - as the truth would bid me and kissed him on the forehead. Damn, I thought to myself. He has grown up. He's an adult. It hurt so much, I wondered if I wasn't having a heart attack of some sort.
But today is different.
"Make yourself presentable, sir, really," Mr. Khan says in mock exasperation. "You wear that coat all the time - just get some nice robes on or something." He then spits out something in Spanish or Italian, I can't tell which. "And please get on with it, Mr. Snape: your guest won't wait for ever, you know."
This makes me suspicious. It can't be Francis, otherwise he would not be making such a fuss.
I am led into a small, well lit and well furnished room, clearly intended for private use only. The person at the other end of the table looks up and nearly screams and I can't help from taking a step backwards myself.
It's Vida.
"Ms Glow," Mr Khan says politely. "He's all yours."
He shuts the door. For a moment I suspect a trap, but looking around me, I realise that the room is kept alight by magical means. There's not a window to be seen, and the only possible exit is the very door through which we entered.
"Oh..." I say.
She flings her arms around my neck and kisses my cheeks repeatedly. "You're actually alive - I didn't believe Fran: I thought he was lying to get us to stop worrying. He looked so sad when he came back to us last time." She kisses me again. "Oh, my Daddy!" She squeals into my chest. "It's my Daddy!" Finally, Vida lets me go and I, stunned, look at her properly. I am half-convinced that she's some trick to get me to confess to some unsolved crime, but I realise that no, it is my daughter.
"Vida..."
"Sh! Just be quiet! Don't say a word!" I look at her, startled, but she's too busy searching my face as well, to make sure - doubly sure - that I am the real thing. "You are a fool, do you know that? If only you'd come to us... or Great great grandfather... or great grandfather... any of us. But no, you had to go solo. Oh, my Daddy, you fool! We miss you!" She doesn't move much as she says this, only her eyes. "Are you happy?"
"No."
"I thought not." Her speech is sharp and harsh, but I know that is not how she intends it. It's just the way she speaks when she is excited. "Look at you!" She says. "You've gone grey!"
That was one thing I had not considered. I had grown accustomed to the growing amounts of grey in my hair as I had to look at myself every morning to shave and wash. Even Francis, who visits me periodically has got used to it, but to my daughter who had last seen me with shoulder length black hair, I am a very different person now.
She touches a lock of pure white hair, where my skull was split thanks to Mr. Anumis' attack. I wince slightly, instinctively. "Damn, what have they done to you?"
"Nothing, dearest."
"Oh, be quiet!" Then she kisses me on the cheek again. "You'll never be freed, you know."
"I know."
She looks surprised. "You knew? But when we last spoke, you made it sound..."
"I didn't want to state the obvious."
We look at each other again. She is an adult as well, now. She wears her long hair in a bun and is now only a little bit shorter than me. She has my nose for sure, but I think it suits her. She and Cronan take after their mother in build so although slim and moderately tall, they are not the rake thin sticks that my mother and I were, nor are they giants like Francis and my father. Her darker skin shines and I can see she's lined her eyes with kohl or something similar. She really has grown up. For the first time in a very long while, I feel regret.
"So, Ms Ermyntrude Glow," I begin, meandering over to the chairs. "How are you?"
She pauses. "I'm fine. I'm starting where you finished, Daddy. I've decided to go into research when I'm done with University. Magical research." We sit down and push our chairs nearer together. I am surprised by her lack of inhibitions.
As if reading my mind, she says "Don't worry, they can't hear us. The walls are too thick, not to mention that beast of a door... and I put a silencing charm on it when it closed. It was difficult because this place has so much magic of it's own, but you would be surprised what one can do with a little bit of hope and lot of imagination," she pauses and looks at me gravely. "Or at least, that's what Albus Dumbledore always used to tell me." She swiftly shakes her head at the look on my face (it seems I have lost what skill I had in keeping my face perfectly smooth and devoid of emotion) and carries on. "Well, let's not go into that. We're all fine, really. Well no, we're not, but it's not as if we can't handle it..." she smiles sweetly at me, without a trace of irony.
"What do you mean?" I ask, even though the answer is perfectly obvious.
She raises an eyebrow in a parody of myself trying to eke out some sort of explanation from her in her younger days after she had committed some devious act. "Well, Cronan certainly hates you now, for one thing. He doesn't say it but he does. I think in a way he always has. But now you're not around it's even worse, because now he's got an excuse to hate you." She sighs wearily. "He had a huge argument with Mummy the other day. She was getting really upset because she was thinking, well saying, how nice it would be to see you again and then he just... exploded at her," Vida shakes her head. "I've never seen anything like it. Worse, Mummy started shouting back at him. Usually she just cries, but this time, she'd had enough. Then Fran got involved and it was over, thank goodness."
I am about to say something but then she suddenly interrupts me with "do you think I should cut my hair off?"
"What - all of it?" I ask stupidly.
"No, most of it."
"Certainly not," I snap, pained. She had always had beautiful hair. I can remember many a night having to help her wash and comb it when Moralis was too fed up with her to do it. I had always been foolishly proud of the fact that my only daughter had had such lovely hair, even when her acne had become so terrible, she'd refuse to go to school.Then I pull myself together. "But then, I'm biased aren't I? As your father, after all..."
Her eyes crinkle, which is a sign she is about to cry or wants to anyway. I haven't seen her actually cry since she was seven. "I'm jesting, dearest," I add hurriedly. "Do whatever you want." I don't mean that, of course, and she knows it. "I have no right to..."
"Oh shut up. Of course I won't," she says, smiling a very watery smile. "I wish I'd never asked now..." she mumbles ironically.
There is a knock at the door. "Ten minutes, Mr. Snape." Mr. Khan as always.
I sigh and look at my Vida again. "How is your mother, really?" I ask finally.
"She's coping. She's very strong you know. I mean, she cries a lot but it's not the way a normal person would: it doesn't mean she's on the edge or anything like that. It just means she's crying." I snort, half-amused, half-depressed. Vida smiles one-sidedly. "I know it sounds strange but I can't really describe it any other way. She misses you a great deal, you know. She really does. Can barely talk about you, but then again, that's the way everyone wants it. No one wants to think about you or talk about you, except for great grandfather. He always talks to me about you. He's so desperate to talk to someone and you know how quiet and reserved he usually is. He just blossoms when he gets started: he has so many memories..." Although her eyes are on my face, I can tell she isn't really seeing. She's drifted off into her own world. "You sound as if you were a darling when you were younger."
I snap out of the hazy cloud of depression that had began to set over me. "A darling?" I say slowly.
"Yes. He always said you kept trying to run away and hide all the time." Vida grins evilly at me and I feel my cheeks redden. I have no recollection of that, but as she mentions it, a grainy image of the attic and me hiding under the dust cover of a table... a feeling that it was vital I be quiet and not move an inch... the sensation goes as quick as it had come. "He says you preferred your Muggle grandparents to anyone else, and it had been a disgrace that you weren't allowed to see your grandmother when she was dying," she goes on. Then Vida pauses and looks at me carefully. "Daddy," she says abruptly, "what were our grandparents like? Not even great grandfather talks about them and no one even acts like they existed. It's just one big blank."
When she was younger, Vida had found some old photographs. They were Muggle ones that had been taken by my father of my mother and I. Vida had commented on her pretty grandmother (any woman who did not look like her was considered to be pretty but my mother was no beauty for sure) and (in the few group pictures) her rather handsome grandfather. When she saw me (at a week old, eight months, eighteen months, two years... six years...) she would suddenly fall silent, as if she couldn't put two and two together. She had asked a similar question then.
I speak bluntly: "I don't remember, dearest. And that's the honest truth. I don't remember anything from before the attack."
For most of the time, I try not to think about Moralis. It's much too painful. But when I am returned to my cell, I steel myself and dare my mind to wander.
She was always a rational person, and had the typical ancient mind that I had grown to admire, the mind with that rigid and unrelenting sense of purpose. We speak of Logic in this day and age but we don't mean it. The Logic we talk about depends on our own individual understanding, and our use of wording itself, so that throws the mere concept of Logic out of the window. Moralis was very different because she understood this, from a considerably early age. It is a revelation that has come to me after two years of solitude and near-madness, but it was a fact of life that Moralis had always appreciated. It was why she was so attracted to people like the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the Greeks in particular. They understood the need for the irrational, the joy of escaping ego, far more than we do, in an age where still we dismiss the old values and powers of belief and the inescapable presence of the irrational in the world around us. The sheer irrationality of the fact of existence, for example, which is of course the ultimate paradox. Ho, ho.
It is a cliche when a man says he loves a woman for her mind, but a cliche that I must concede may well be true. Hormones can only do so much, after all. And that was part of the attraction that Moralis held for me. She was a strong woman, as her daughter had admitted, and her perception of the world, different from anyone else's, caught me and left me in a trance. I felt as if I were constantly reaching out for her, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable pursuit. She was the strength that I needed and I had realised that from the moment I knew her. She helped me see that the things I had considered a part of life were in fact irrequisite. I did not have to marry her, I did not have to continue going to school, I did not have to stay with my family. I could do anything.
Perhaps it was because she herself was caught between two worlds. Her uncle and aunt who brought her up were the salt of the earth type, lower class Northern people, but she herself had one parent who she suspected was still alive somewhere in west Africa and another dead in a wrongly marked grave. It seemed oddly appropriate that a girl with no real root in this world should seek an affinity with a people long since dead. Whatever it was, I was completely enamoured with her.
Then there was the fact that we were much alike. We weren't - well, I wasn't, for one, but Moralis was considered exotic in '70s England, so she could get away with it - the most attractive of people. We were skinny, awkward, gauche. I walked like a penguin, and she a horse (as my great great grandfather put it, correctly I feel). She found the world confusing and exhausting, frustrating at best, and I was just plain disdainful of hoi polloi altogether. When the so-called 'grunge' look became popular in the fashion world, (this must have been the early or mid- 90s) and it was (apparently, because I never saw them, being in Hogwarts, after all) heralded on the front cover of every Muggle newspaper, she sent me a long letter with details of how she'd celebrated and excerpts from the newspapers which arrived as a large bundle the next morning in the Great Hall. 'Ugly, skinny and gauche is now in, love. We are free at least,' she'd written. I hadn't been sure if she was joking or not. Needless to say, I could not exactly join in with her celebrating.
For all that she was a philosopher, she was very pragmatic. When first I fled with Draco from Hogwarts after killing Dumbledore, I foolishly went to her first. Although Draco never found out that she was my wife, I could tell that he was instantly calmed by her cool, brisk authority. He frequently asked me about her afterwards.
Moralis was never surprised. I always felt it was a good thing that someone knew what was going on around here.
During my last night outside of Azkaban, the night after my trial, I had had a dream about her coming to visit me. At least, at that time I had thought it a mere dream. I was so disorientated by the deaths of the Dark Lord and of Harry Potter, the private trial and interviews with the Ministry that much of what happened seemed like a dream. Not only that, but I hadn't reckoned that Moralis would be able to visit me, but as I think on it now, she must have been. And it seems she did.
I was lying on the bed, a rather comfortable one with a new mattress, looking up to the ceiling and trying to go to sleep when I heard the latch on the door click. Of course, I paid no attention to it, hoping that if it was a guard, I could feign sleep.
Then I saw her face, upside down, and felt her cool hands on the side of my face. She cradled my head and tipped it back towards her.
"Hello Severus," she said softly.
"Hello Moralis."
"How are you?"
"I'm fine, how are you?"
"I'm fine, too." Then she leaned forward and kissed me shortly on the lips. I could feel the mattress move just above my head where she sat down. "Well, as fine as I possibly can be."
"Well, that's good."
"Yes." She smiled slightly. "However, that doesn't mean I am particularly fine... just fine enough..." Moralis chuckled and rolled her eyes. "Well, someone has certainly been a silly rabbit, haven't they?"
"Mm. Yes, I suppose."
She laughed again. "They're making out that you're worse than Lord Voldemort."
I frown slightly. Moralis - much like Dumbledore - always made a point of calling someone by their actual name, never by a nickname or anything like that. However, she never knew what the Dark Lord's real name was, though she had always had her doubts as to whether he had actually been born a Lord Voldemort, but it had to do. "In a way, that's true."
"In a way... in a way I could say that about everyone who had possibly existed."
"Well that's your job isn't it?"
"Ouch."
Because I thought her presence to be a dream, I realise that I must have said lots of things to her that I wouldn't normally have said. It all seems so melodramatic to me, but I can recall it distinctly (as I can recall most conversations I had with my wife). I suppose it just goes to show that even the best of us can loosen our tongues with so little prompting.
"How long do you think they will lock you away for?"
"The rest of my life."
"Oh dear," she whispered and lifted my head slightly, leaning it on her thigh. "Oh no..." It was so late by now that hardly any light was coming in through the window, and I couldn't make much of the room or even her facial features, near as they were to me. I felt her rest her cheek against mine. I raised my arm and stroked the curve of her spine and her waist. Despite her obvious grief, I was in too much of a trance to respond altogether appropriately to it. She had started crying but I felt a strange sense of peace and calm. Were I in the right state of mind, I would have been alarmed: my Moralis never cried, she made a point of it, but I couldn't understand in this dream of mine why she would be. A life of imprisonment was nearly incomprehensible, so what was there to worry or regret...?
She kissed me again. Eventually we made love.
"You're not really here, are you?" I said at one point, kissing her repeatedly on the neck. She had laughed.
"No, I suppose I'm not..."
Looking at her directly in the eyes, I should have seen the regret, the sadness and ultimately, the love that was there. Now I do, in painful hindsight, I just wish that I had appreciated it then and tried to comfort her.
She left a long while after that, after we had made love again and after the first rays of light had filtered through the windows. I could tell that she didn't want to, this vision of my wife that had come to visit me, but it was pointless to say anything about it. I had to make her go, and that I did by not saying good bye. I didn't even look at her, but at the light of the new day coming through the window.
I am lying here now on my bed and it is still early in the evening. And that is when it occurs to me that there is much more of my memories that I must confront and recall, but there is one in particular. And so I must write.
Write and keep.
History in the making.