He had grown to loathe his wife. Loathe her…
They had spent fifteen years together. Fifteen full years of seeing her every morning, yet it was only in their last year that her habits began to drive him utterly mad. One habit in particular set his teeth on edge: she would stretch out her arms while still lying in bed and say, Good morning, sunshine! Its going to be a lovely day. Such an innocent phrase, but her thin arms and sleepy face filled him with aversion.
After rising, she wandered over to the window and gazed thoughtfully outside for several seconds. Then she would remove her nightdress and slip into the bathroom. In the early years of their marriage, hed admired her body and the confidence with which she moved, teetering on the brink of immodesty. Though her form was still striking, the sight of it now sparked only anger. Once, hed nearly given her a shove to hurry along her waking routine, but mustered all his restraint and merely snapped:
Hurry up, will you? Im sick of waiting!
She never rushed through life; she understood his affair, even recognised the young woman hed been meeting with for nearly three years. But the passage of time had dulled the sting to a lingering sadness of being unwanted. She forgave his temper, his absence, his desperate chase for lost youth. Yet she did not let him disturb her steady, reflective approach to living, cherishing every moment she had.
She chose to live this way since discovering her illness. Month by month, it ate away at her; soon, it would triumph. Her first impulse had been to confide in everyone she loved, to share her pain so it might be scattered and softened. But after enduring the most wretched day alone, facing her own mortality, she resolved to stay silent. The current of her life was fading, and each day she gained a new depth the quiet wisdom of those who have learned how to simply be.
She found solace in the villages modest library, an hour and a halfs walk from home. There, each day she slipped between narrow shelves, labelled by the elderly librarian Mysteries of Life and Death, and always found a book that seemed to promise all the answers.
He, meanwhile, visited his lovers house all warmth, brightness, and familiarity. Theyd been involved three years, and all that time his passion for her was wild and consuming. Jealous, possessive, he lived for the youth of her body and withered away whenever apart from her.
Today, he was decided: he would divorce his wife. Why torment all three? He felt nothing for his wife but hatred; here, he could begin again and chase happiness. As he steeled himself, he found he could not even recall ever loving his wife; it seemed she had infuriated him from that first day. Reaching into his wallet, he took out her photograph and, to seal his resolve, tore it to shreds.
They agreed to meet at a restaurant the same one where, six months earlier, theyd celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary. She arrived first. He, before meeting her, stopped by the house in search of the divorce papers, rifling through drawers in tense agitation, scattering their contents across the floor.
In one drawer, he discovered a dark blue folder, sealed one hed never seen. He crouched and tore away the tape in a single motion. Hed expected anything, perhaps even some incriminating photographs. Instead, the folder contained only medical records test results, hospital seals, forms with his wifes name and initials.
A dreadful suspicion hit him like lightning, a chill running down his spine. Illness! He turned to the internet, typed in her diagnosis, and read the bleak prediction: 6 to 18 months. He checked the dates it had already been six months since the diagnosis. What happened after that remains unclear in his memory; the phrase 618 months echoed in his mind, relentless.
She waited for him forty minutes. Her calls went unanswered; she eventually paid her bill in pounds and stepped out onto the pavement. The autumn day was beautiful; the sun warm, not oppressive, touching the heart. What a beautiful world, how good it is to be alive earth, sun, woodland close at hand.
For the first time since discovering her illness, she felt a pure, aching pity for herself. She had held her secret from husband, parents, friends. She bore the burden alone, sparing others even as her own life unraveled. Soon, little would remain of her but memory.
She walked on, seeing the joy in peoples eyes; for them, life lay ahead winter, then certainly spring. Such feelings were denied her now. Grief swelled inside and burst forth in a flood of silent tears…
At home, he paced the room, stricken for the first time by the swift passing of life. He recalled his wife in her youth, when theyd first met, so full of hope and dreams. He truly had loved her then. Now, fifteen years seemed to vanish; before him lay happiness, youth, life…
In her last days, he wrapped her in constant care, attended her every hour, and tasted a joy he hadnt known before. He was terrified of losing her, desperate enough to have given his own life for hers. If anyone had suggested that, just a month before, hed longed to leave her, hed have denied it: That wasnt me.
He watched her struggle to say goodbye to life, weeping in the dark when she thought he slept. He understood that to know when one would die was the cruelest fate. He saw how hard she fought, clinging to the faintest thread of hope.
She died two months later. He covered the path from their home to the churchyard in flowers and sobbed like a child as her coffin was lowered, aged a thousand years overnight.
At home, beneath her pillow, he found a note a New Years wish shed written: To be happy with Him to my very last day. Folk say wishes made at New Year come true. It seems they do, for in his own hand that year he had wished: To be free.
Each got what he or she had wished for, or so it seemed…
