The Marlboro Man

You shouldn’t have come, she said.

I had no choice, he replied stepping into the room reverently. My body is breaking down and I have given myself only a week to live. So rather than traveling to the coast and seeing the ocean once more, I wanted to see you.

She laughed. You may have heard I am not in the best of shape, she replied with a grin. Neither said anything in the solemnity of the moment. The machines did their work indifferently. The light was soft and she glowed in it. How will you go in a week?

Oh, I don’t know, he sighed. God’s will.

You seem at peace, she said.

I’m okay with it. Things have stopped working, he went on. I imagine I will pass in my sleep because my heart will stop when it has nothing to beat for.

She bit her lip thinking of what that would be like. She imagined a bloody pulp heart on ice at the market. In the glass case next to rows of cow tongue. Things that cannot be unseen. How long has it been? she blurted. She hadn’t thought before she spoke, or she wouldn’t have asked him.

A respirator seemed to answer for him because he was silent. His gray head looked down at his hands. His old fingers tallied through digits. He was counting years in his head. Thirty two years, he paused. Six months and seventeen days.

She smiled.

Do you want your letters?

My what?

Your letters?

You wrote me letters?

Yes.

Why didn’t you send them to me? she asked.

I didn’t think it was proper being that you were married to the Marlboro Man. I didn’t want to interfere in your happyness.

She grimaced unwittingly. And you, married?

No.

There must have been many more after me.

There were a few.

She shook her head. Her skin was blanched and her eyes sunken. Her bald head was wrapped in a silk scarf given to her by a hospice nurse. Her body was emaciated. That is what she looked like when she caught glimpses of herself in the reflective metal of the sterile machines, or in the night glass window. It was still light. There were fewer machines now. He continued.

There was Maggie and Piper and Jezebel and Jackie O and Emily and Peggy Sue. He tried to remember more looking up at the lights. He looked old to her but through the wrinkles and the drooping skin he appeared to her in his youth.  

They sound, interesting, she grated.

I got them all from the shelter, he smiled. There was no one after you. Human-wise. I couldn’t. I had nothing left to give. So I wrote and had meaningful relationships with dogs. It was a good life all but for one detail.

She smiled but erased it. She shouldn’t smile. She was obscenely adept at suppressing and erasing emotion. Her brain was a fascist regime with a strong national defense. Love was under her thumb. Happiness was manufactured when it was needed and slaughtered when not. It had built a wall thirty two years ago that had remained, though there were red graffiti hearts sprayed all over it in protest.

So where is he?

Who? she asked.

The Marlboro Man.

We divorced.

When?

Seven years ago.

I am sorry.

Don’t lie.

I am. Truly. I only wanted you to be happy.

I was once, she said.

I was, too. He sat near her, leaning into her hoping to hold her hand. He didn’t see a cancer-ridden body. He saw her thirty two years ago and she was as beautiful as the day they met. They are strange glasses lovers wear, even 32 years removed.

So where are these letters? she grinned. Risen tears glimmered in her eyes but didn’t fall.

He produced a backpack which he unzipped. The opening burst with letters in legal-sized envelopes. All addressed to her. All stamped and sealed. Cards for every birthday, every holiday, every occasion, in colorful envelopes.

The tears fell. She sighed looking at them. It was the day before Thanksgiving. A cardboard humanized turkey hung behind her bed given to her by a grandchild on a visit. He pulled a hat from another pocket. It was a turkey head hat. She laughed looking at its googly eyes.

Do you remember? he smiled.

Of course, she said. She felt young again. She reached for a tissue. The IV dripped.

Where are the kids?

They will be here tomorrow, she said. Will you still be here?

Yes, if you like.

She paused. I'm sure they would like to see you again.

He shook his head thinking they wouldn’t remember him but saying nothing of it.

She looked dejectedly at the bag.

What’s wrong?

I realize that I probably don’t have time to read them all.

He drew closer and sat the bag on the floor. Her lower body was covered with a thick white ocean of a cotton blanket and he put his hand on her leg. Well, I can sum them up in a few words. They say the same thing, only in different time and ways. They’re a million different paths to the same journey’s end.

Which is?

I love you. I never let go. I always hoped you would come back.

There was nothing to stop the tears. There weren’t tissues enough, strength enough, and her fascist brain could not regulate order in the anarchy that overtook it. But their shared tears were eradicated by the craziness of his turkey hat. Its long bobbing head on a brown felt neck made her laugh.

When did you write the last letter?

On the plane here.

I look a fright, she said fixing her head wrap. I’m a hot mess.

You’re beautiful beyond comprehension and there is nothing in this world I would rather see. The evening passed quickly to night. They ate dinner once more, had a drink which he had snuck in. A bottle of wine for old time’s sake, in plastic cups. The TV was on but they hardly noticed. An old movie they had never finished, nor ever would. Sam played As Time Goes By on his piano and 32 years were erased as though they never were. And before it was through, he crawled into bed with her as the snow fell outside the large window. And in the glass there they were and the lights dimmed soft reflecting them like the brush strokes of an impressionist portrait. He held her and kept her warm once again. He stroked her head and she curled into him contented. And when her final breaths grew weaker and shallower, he said softly the only thing left to say.    

Thank you.