Scary Stories: Continued

11

I meet her in a little Italian café, on a cool Monday morning. She gets her usual - caramel macchiato, iced, double espresso, with a florentine cookie. She laughs and says that she works long hours. She says that's what happens when you're an entrepreneur. When she hands me her business card with a wink about the benefits of a home office, I see that she's a photographer. Local address. Not surprising, since she picked the place. She smiles and takes my hand.

Almost instantly, I can imagine our lives together. I meet her parents. They love me. We go on date after date after date. Everyone nods and smiles knowingly when we move in together. We get married in a huge grey stone church with ceilings higher than the roof of my apartment building. We buy our first home. We have one, two - no, three children! And we're so happy.

The years wear on. I notice her lines and wrinkles, but pretend not to. We fight a little. We have our ups and downs. The kids grow up. We work it out. We're happy, for years. It really happened, for both of us. She's 40. Doctor appointments. Cancer. We go through chemo once - no, twice. Radiation. She's so sick. She wants to die. Surgery. She apologizes for the scars. She cries.

She beats it. We go on, slowly. Tentatively. All the tests come back clear. We're not sure what to do. We already said goodbye.

Therapy. We're happy again, but it's not like before. But we make it. The big 5-0.

Three months later, the cancer comes back. It's wormed itself through what's left of her chest and into her bones. It's not fast, but it's not slow. Either way, it takes too long. She asks me to help her, but I can't. She wants me to help end her life. I can't. She looks healthy, no matter what the doctors say. No matter how it hurts. There's hope. We take it day by day. We cry. All at once, she withers into a husk in my arms. I see how she ends. It's a slow, painful death, surrounded by tubes and monitors and the cold white walls of a hospice.

I come back to the present. I let go of her hand. I'm not smiling anymore. She's confused. It was going so well.

A few hours later, I've made up my mind. I drive to her home. She's surprised to see me there. She's not happy. My dear, dear future wife. I can't let her suffer. So I don't.

And I see how she ends.