IV.

In the evening we sat with coffee in her kitchen at either end of the rough wood table, our hands wrapped around our mugs and warm. Her father was asleep upstairs and she was tired but wouldn't sleep herself. There would be time enough to dream later she figured. So we sat and spoke. Of the past and our previous hopes for the future.

She recalled the time I wondered what she would look like older, as a mother or a grandmother. Later when we had both grown and moved on, together or not. The former had been our hope since we met in school. She figured that she had her mother's face. Her mother who had aged little physically and, if she had lived, would have still been youthful in her old age. These were her father's thoughts as well who spoke of his wife often in hopes that his daughter would grow up with the feeling of her presence if not the actuality.

I wished to change the subject, so she began to talk about her thoughts about God and eternity. How she was beginning to believe that all would reach heaven if they truly desired to please God during their life. She thought that truth was too far-removed from human understanding for God to hold man accountable for their ignorance. I don't see that as justice, she said.

I told her that I hoped she was right although I knew that there were many we knew who would disagree.

-I'll find out soon enough, she said, half smiling.

-We all will, I said, and she smiled again.

We both were quiet for a while after because each subject seemed a reminder somehwo of the short time she had left, but anything ordinary seemed inane and shallow. I was sad and picked a pomegranate from the bowl at the edge of the table. I sliced it in half with a knife, glad for the distraction and hoping that my sullenness wouldn't affect her. She reached for one of the halves and we sat for a while, silently picking out the red jeweled fruit. Stripping the soft flesh from the tiny seends and spitting them into a saucer.

There was something comforting about the shared repetition. I watched her pick a clump out of the shell and separate each seed before putting it in her mouth, one by one. Like the fruit, I felt that she too had jewels, waiting to be pried out and enjoyed. I wanted to be the one to taste them. I pushed my portion aside and watched her until she too stopped. She reached for a napkin and rubbed her stained fingers. Then she took my hand in hers from across the table and told me that things would be alright for me and not to dwell on her or the inevitable. I told her she should go to sleep because I didn't want what we had to be reduced to such cliches.

So we got up and she walked me to the door and out on the porch and we stood in the dark for a while, quiet. I felt that things were changing too fast for anybody to adjust so we could only think of gestures and words we had seen in movies. I would rather be still and silent than be dramatic even though I had no defense for this sort of thing, but before I left I kissed her on the mouth, knowing the complications it would bring.