Everlast

EPILOGUE

In the summer of 1950, Obsidian Estates and Farming finished renovations after the war. Machinery replaced some of the men, but parts and labour were affordable. Old huts became bigger cottages, people came and went, but Uncle Lionel's legacy lived on.

Her once Tuscan yellow strands now turned a shade of pale yellow. The crinkle around her hazel eyes had seen a considerable amount of horror, despair, but hope during those harsh times of the war. She ambled, her walking cane aiding her since her leg sprain before the last century and now her aging bones of nearly eighty years old.

Rushing steps of children playing hide and seek, Monica shook her head. Never imagining her life would have taken her in this direction. Once having no desire to marry changed her mind when she met Mr Isle's military friend, Sergeant Ronald Frobisher, at an evening dinner, three years after the terrible ordeal in the office with her cousin George. Friendship turned to courtship and eventually marriage as Monica recalled her words to John, wanting someone who could walk with her in life.

And she shared life's many pleasures. And she had a cup full of joy. Although Ronald passed nearly fifteen years ago, leaving her with two sons, five grandchildren and two great-grand children, Monica sat on her patio, often thinking about a man, more human than any other human she ever met.

During most of the week, Monica, having nothing but time on her hands, would admire the sunrise over her hard worked land. Drinking iced lemon juice, she detected a movement. Thinking a magpie had swooped down she placed a pair of binoculars near her eyes. In the horizon an outline of a bulky man in an all too familiar dirty trench coat walked along the path.

With a double take, thinking her poor eyesight and her mind had deteriorated she looked again, as the lonely figure, wedged a duffle bag under his arm walked towards the Estate.

Her old heart beat faster as she continued to peer through. Even at that distant, with his collars covering his marked face, she could never forget his volcanic eyes, recalling how they cried like a waterfall she last time she looked into them.

Dropping the binoculars she took two steps down the patio stairs. The golden ray warmed the sky as he appeared moments before her home.

"You haven't aged a day," she croaked, extending her arm to him.

He didn't say a word, just gazed at her, helping her upstairs. "Have you had a happy life?"

"Happy as I could have been." She sat with him by the table. "And have you?"

He held her now wrinkled hands, soft like tissue, nodding with his black lips drawn into a content smile. "Now I have Miss Everlast. Now I have."

The glorious sun, like a fireball in the sky rose like an old friend, greeting the two who spent most of their time away in different company. One had a content life, the other rowed back from his desolate shore.