Take Her Hand

• Darcy Sorensen, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2017

I met the love of my life in 1973. Rosy-cheeked with eyes brighter than the protest sign she accidentally hit me with. She apologised and invited me out to lunch to make up for it; I didn’t tell her till a decade later that her smile had struck me harder than the sign.
Lunch was secret glances in the corner of the restaurant. It was the touch of her hand beneath the tabletop, too afraid to hold mine across the table in case they saw the difference between our skin. The war everyone remembers may have been fought overseas but we had been fighting war amongst ourselves since the cradle.
She never asked for more than I was ready to give, never pushed me to declare our love even as my silence destroyed her. It was years of clandestine meetings, protests and ignorance before I dared to hold her hand on the street, terrified at any moment someone would see and tear us apart.
I took her hand that day and I never let her go. Even as her skin wrinkled with age and the years weighed heavy on her mind; her eyes sparkled with the same humour I first saw. Barely into adulthood, lying bewildered on a southern road I had looked up at the beautiful woman, haloed in sunlight, and thought ‘this is what forever feels like’.
There is none of that life in her now, her hand cold and limp in my own, lying on starched white sheets. The sound of her laughter replaced with the steady beep of a machine. Her chest rises and falls with difficulty and I can see every breath hurts; yet it never once falters. It never stops.
Our daughter has already been and gone with her children. Our son is arriving on a plane from Afghanistan, he’s a soldier. I once told my love how ironic it was our child became what she had protested… she hit me with a towel and told me to shut it.
The soft click of the door opening alerts me to the doctor and I turn fearfully in my seat. A deep-set frown furrows his brow and my breath catches in my throat.
“Has something happened?” The words drag like sandpaper across my tongue and I am intimately aware how long it has been since I’ve spoken.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you, her condition has worsened. If I were you I would prepare my last goodbyes.”
A wave of grief rises threateningly, I have spent most of my life following this woman, I fear she is going somewhere I can’t follow.
“May I have a minute?” I request, craving a moment alone with her before our children arrive.
“Of course, ma’am” he acquiesces, leaving with the same gentle click.
“Please my love, not yet.” I plead, clasping her hand in my own, the icy metal of her ring as cold as her skin
Lips pressed against her pulse, I hear the machine falter.