Newlyweds

Catherine rode in the back of the taxi, as she made her way towards town from the airport. She had been a long time gone from this place but she remembered her surroundings and was happy to see the area once more. It was raining hard outside but the cabbie had put on the heat and she had become quite comfortably warm, she nodded off a few times but the honks of the cars around her continually woke her up. The cabbie was unusual as he apologized whenever this happened.

She flexed her hands, stiff with the arthritis and thought about the medication that she took and how useless it was. She shrugged though being in the grand scheme of things as unimportant. This is how she looked at the majority of things nowadays, she was sixty-eight, her hair having become a shock of white and she showed her age, she knew that her time was fast coming, there was no point in denying it. She had prescribed herself to an almost zenlike calm in all manners, which caused her children to wonder if she had been taking her blood pressure pills more than normal.

She thought about them, pulling out the photo from her purse that she carried with her everywhere. Her daughter and her husband, their two children, Lauren and Michelle. She put the picture away after a spell and settled herself in her seat once more.

The cabbie had been rather talkative at the beginning of the trip after she had asked him the simple question of how he was. Apparently, he was quite excited as he was engaged to be married and soon to start law school, the taxi driving being only temporary. He showed her a picture of his girlfriend, a pretty little thing with a spark of something that Catherine couldn’t define but quite liked in her eye. She had shown him the picture of her family and he had inquired what she was doing out here. She explained that she was here to see an old friend.

“I guess that’s all I have left,” she said with a slight laugh.

They were now off the freeway and were traveling the backroads to her destination. The rain continued to pour down and she knew that she was going to need a towel when she made the transition from the car to the house. In the meantime, though she began to nod off for one final time. Soon she was slumbering peacefully and was only awakened by the sudden stop of the car.

“Your friend appears to be waiting for you,” the cabbie said.

She looked out of the window and saw him standing on the front steps holding an open umbrella. He started his slow, halting steps towards the cab. She opened the door and the cabbie told her that he would bring her things to the door. Tom smiled at her, she remembered that smile, while the rest of him had gotten old, that had remained the same. He had lost the majority of his hair and his stomach had emerged as a small paunch. He took her hand held the umbrella over her head as she got herself out of the car.

“Good to see you, Catherine,” he said.

“Always a pleasure, Tom,” she said.

He helped her to the door and the cabbie soon followed with her suitcase, scurrying along. Tom held the door open and the young man stood out in the rain and slid the suitcases through the door.

“How much do I owe you?” Catherine asked.

“24.75,” he said.

“Alright”

Catherine began to root in her purse and then she handed him a small stack of bills. He looked at it and then began reaching into his money pouch to get her change.

“No change, go take your fiancé out for a night on the town,” Catherine said.

“Ma’am, I can’t take this much…” he said, his face aching with the idea of giving back that much money.

“I don’t need it, I’m just going to waste it on gas while I drive around with the blinker on”

She looked at Tom who smiled and the cabbie agonized over what to do for a few more moments. Then he slowly folded the money and thanked her before leaving. Tom closed the door after him and looked at Catherine.

She stepped forward, her bones aching from the car ride and he took her in his arms. Afterwards, the two stood and looked in each other’s eyes. He frowned for a moment as he realized why she was here.

“I’m sorry to hear about what happened to Robert,” he said.

“I’m sorry for having to keep you waiting for so long,” she said.

Then it came, that slow smile, the one that she remembered from when she was a girl of sixteen. When he was working the hot stand at the carnival, his hair in a handsome flop as he asked her what she wanted. Telling her to hold her money that he would cover it as long as he got a date with her. He had charmed her with his eyes in that first moment and had later made her fall in love on their third date.

From that point, he had gone into the army to fight the Nazis alongside other small town boys who weren’t as fortunate. He had become wounded, taking a bullet to his upper leg, it still hurt him to this day. Of course, his heart had been hurting long before his leg was struck. Catherine had written him a month before, telling him of the hard times that her family had fallen under and that a young man was trying to court her, a man that could take care of them. He had told her that she should do what she thought right. Fortunately, Robert was a good man and had treated her well, Tom arrived home a week after they had gotten married. He had never met Robert but he had gone to her house when he was at work and cemented himself forever as the one for her.

“I still love you, I always will, I’ll wait for you. I know that a part of you still loves me just as a part of you loves Robert for what he does for your family. I have no intention of coming between that. But I would be wrong not to tell you where you stand with me, that you will travel with me wherever I go”

With that he had given her that slow smile and then walked away. He had waited for her, never marrying and living alone throughout his life. Still, though he never seemed to be upset and when she did talk to him, he seemed happy enough. She had asked him what made him smile and he had simply said “the memory of you and the fact that you’re still smiling right now”

And she had thought about him from that point. She remembered, the sight of him his wrists and ankles, his brown hair. His smell of old tobacco and freshly cut grass. The rough feel of his hands on her neck and the press of his lips when he kissed her under the marque of the pizza parlor. And of course that slow smile, that drew itself across his face, that showed how content he was with the world at that given moment.

There were also the physical remnants that she had locked in a small hope chest that Robert was kind enough to never mention but recognize its importance. It was filled with yellowed love letters, an old corsage, a bottle of the cologne that Tom had worn on their first date among other things.

“C’mon, I made us some dinner,” he said.

They sat down for dinner and the room was lit only by a pair of candles in the center of his little table. They made their way through dinner and dessert but they continued talking until neither could keep their eyes open anymore. Finally, Tom rose from the table and he told her that he was heading on into bed. She picked up her suitcase and followed him.

They both got ready for bed, the way each one of them would have liked to for the past fifty years. He pulled the covers back and the two of them climbed into bed together. Tom rolled over as Catherine settled in and opened up his dresser drawer. He held something in his hand as he turned back towards her.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“What I had planned to give you since our third date,” he said.

He opened his palm and Catherine saw a tiny box. She opened it and found a ring with a small diamond imbedded in it. She smiled at him, her eyes filling with tears and then she slipped the ring on her finger. She had taken off Robert’s after he had passed on two months ago. She kissed Tom and he took her hands in his. They lay together, staring into each other’s eyes.

“My mother was always wondering when I would be married,” he said.

“I do,” she said.

Soon both of them settled into sleep. Then much later in the night, their heartbeats began to slow and finally they passed on. The cleaning lady discovered them the next morning and after a short bout of hysterics she had called for an ambulance. Catherine’s children were called and they discovered a note that their mother had left in her purse. After much debate, Tom and Catherine were buried side by side in a cemetery, united eternally with the gravestones reading:

Here Lies Tom and Catherine Somerset Devoted Husband and Wife

Author’s Note: This story is inspired by but not based of a story that I heard one day while I was working. The inspiration for this story is actually much more romantic. I once working the cash register and this man came up to me to buy a large box of chocolates. He was very excited, he explained to me because it was his wife’s and his fiftieth anniversary. He went on to explain how they met, how he had gone on a double date with another girl and his friend who was dating his future wife at the time. Well, he hit it off with her and went on a second date. On the third one, he asked her to marry him and she accepted and since then he’s said that marrying her was the greatest decision he ever made and he was the happiest man in the world.

I hope you’re happy too.

Don’t forget to brush your teeth and hug your mothers tightly.