The Path

Prologue

I look down at the skin on his hand. Almost translucent, thin, protruding veins look like a crazy map to nowhere. Liver spots and broken capillaries merge across the surface. I give his hand a gentle squeeze and I feel it tense lightly in response. The weak light of autumn departs and the cover of dusk has started to descend. The side lamp wraps the room in a warm glow, illuminating his face and adding colour to where colour has ceased to be. The red blanket falls off his shoulders and I pull it up, then carefully plump his pillow and reposition his head.

The clock on the mantelpiece fills the room with five light chimes. The night-carer will be here soon to tuck him in for the night. He will no doubt again moan that this isn't the right environment for Gil; that a care home may be more appropriate. We know that decision is fast approaching, we've discussed it a number of times, but he is so adamant about staying here. For the time being, time is all we have left, as fleeting as that may be. Moving him, would signal the start of the end and neither of us can bear that. We've only just found each other again.

I pick up the tray and place the soup bowl on it. Gil's chin glistens with a little of the soup he hasn't managed to swallow, so I dab it away with a napkin.

"Alice," he whispers.

I sit down and push the tray back onto the side table. "Yes, Gil."

I move closer and place a kiss on his forehead. He smells of peppermint and clove oil from this morning's massage. Circulation- boosting, was how the home nurse described it. Sheer, bloody torture was what Gil likened it to.

"I have such little time." His voice is distant, barely audible.

"I know," I reply, unable to say anything else.

"Everything is to be yours. My will is in the top drawer...," his hand lifts slightly, pointing to a tall walnut cabinet in the corner of the room, "the top drawer."

"I know," I say again. We've had this particular conversation a lot over the last couple of weeks. "You are tiring yourself with this. You need rest, not worry."

I pick up the tray again and stand. "Would you like a cup of tea, or warm milk? I bet I could find a drop of something to go in it, if you like?"

I run my free hand up his arm and stroke his cheek. He turns to me and opens his eyes wide for the first time in a long while. The tray nearly falls from my other hand. The milky blue I am so used to seeing has gone. His eyes are now shining with the light of youth, so deep and blue, sharp and alert. Not the eyes of Gil today, these are the eyes of Gil then, from the past we briefly shared. My heart thumps in my chest and pulses in my ears. The sight of that blue gaze, cracks the defensive wall I have built up over the last couple of months. My throat tightens and I swallow uncomfortably.

"I have loved you a lifetime," he says quietly, a tear runs weakly down his cheek.

"And I will too."

My life is now forever changed, again. I lean forward and kiss him lightly on the lips. The memory of our final embrace rushes back to me and my body aches for the passion those lips once ignited. He pulls back sharply and whispers into my ear. I can't respond, I cannot promise what I barely believe to be possible. Even now, just being here feels both right and yet utterly ridiculous. His eyes bore into mine, pleading for me to answer. I hesitate and he sees.

"Please, Alice."

I am transported to another time, to another promise requested of me; a promise I failed to keep. I lower my eyes and nod to show him what my words cannot. Then he is gone, as if I have extinguished a burning candle. No death throes, no throaty rattle of a life's last breath escaping into the ether. Just gone. The milky blue has returned and I lower his eye lids with my fingertip, whispering my goodbyes.

"Evening Mr Piper, have you had a good day? That bloody team of yours whooped mine today. Did you manage to see it?" Martin, the white-coated home care assistant bursts into the room having let himself in. "Oh hello, Alice, I didn't know you were here? Your car in the garage again is it? You ought to think about trading..." He stops and looks down at us.

"Oh," he says, "how long?"

"In the last couple of minutes," I reply, still holding Gil's hand.

"I'll call the doctor. They need to issue the certificate for you to take to register. I'm sorry, Alice, your grandfather was a wonderful man."

"Thank you," my face is fixed on Gil's, looking for a trace of the man I loved and who loved me for nearly seventy years. I will keep up this charade for as long as necessary. No one will know the truth. Ever! They just wouldn't understand; they would turn what little we had into something seedy and unpalatable. If I have to call him my grandfather, then I will. I've no family to call me a liar and circumstances or should I say, I, prevented Gil from ever having a family, so there is no one else to question this.

Martin busies himself in the kitchen, while I sit for a while with Gil. I study his face, trying to preserve his image forever in my memory, stored in the same place I keep my other memories of him, his younger self. A wet nose interrupts my thoughts. Jet, Gil's elderly black Labrador is poking his face into my palm. I've forgotten all about the poor dog.

"I'm so sorry boy."

He turns and sniffs at his master, whining gently. My heart silently breaks again, watching his pain mirroring my own and I realise I can't just sit here anymore waiting for them to arrive and take him away.

"Come on, boy, let's go for a walk." The lead is hanging over the back on the armchair. "Back in half an hour, Martin, Jet needs a quick run," I call to the kitchen. Martin pops his head around the door and gives me a sad smile as he continues to listen to someone on the other end of the phone.

I turn back to Gil and suddenly feel so guilty for abandoning him. I don't mean right now, I know he is gone and there is nothing I can do about that. I feel guilty for abandoning him then; running off without a word and leaving him with a lifetime of unanswered questions. If i'd known there would be no way for me to return, I would never have left him.

The cold air nips at my face and bare hands as Jet and I leave the house. The scent of wood smoke and damp, decaying leaves wafts around me, evoking memories of last Autumn. Jet hobbles next to me as we take our usual path, out of the garden, across the small road and into the little dense forest ahead. The same path I took that night, nearly a year ago to Gil. His final request and my final promise replays over and over in my mind.

"Find me," he asked. "Find me again and never leave."

I break. My knees hit the damp earth as my legs give up on me. Grief smashes its' way through my body like a wrecking ball and transforms me into a moaning, sobbing mess. Jet lies down on the floor next to me and refuses to leave; the heat of his body warming mine.

"Find me again and never leave." His words repeat again and again.

I take a deep breath and look up to the heavens above. "I'll try," I whisper, hoping somewhere, somehow he can hear me.

*Dedicated to Hobnails; a rich pot of knowledge and a very lovely friend.