The Crossing

I looked at Edward. His smile filled with love. His hair was white and thin. His cheeks drawn, but he was still the most handsome man I’d ever seen. But it was his eyes. Still bright and young and still full of the adventure and warmth I’d found there over sixty years before. His eyes held mine, still captivated with just a glance.

“I’m going to rest Edward.” I smiled and could see the care and concern.

“You do that, Elise.” He patted my hand. “I’ll be right here.”

The quiet calm of the hospital, the soft blue walls, the sterility. They’d taken good care of me. But today was different. Something in the air, the mood, it was all a little different. Laying back, I looked up and the walls faded into the ceiling, The only sound, the steady rhythm of my pulse, echoing, constant.

Gently, the room opened into brightness, daylight with billowy clouds floating across the calm blue sky. And water. Glassy water in front of me stretching as far as I could see. And farther, in the distance, tall cedars wrapped in deep grooved reddish-brown bark lined the shore. I heard the rhythm, the sounds of life and living. There, far above yet just a reach away, in perfect formation the call of the geese gliding just beneath the clouds their rhythmic honks filled the air.

But it was the cedar, I’d never forget. The warmth of the fragrance emboldened by the water lapping beneath the dock brought it all back to life, to the here and now. I dangled my feet over the edge. They hung just above the water. The dark inviting water. Stretching my toes downward, I could feel its warm caress as the ripples sped away. I watched the waves disappear into the distant water, as the glassy sheen suddenly sprang to life. A trout broke the surface not too far away plucking a quick bite and again disappearing into the murky depths.

The lake was alive. The summer. Not the first time I’d been to Sparrow Lake, but the first time I’d met Edward. That summer was a flood of first times. Memories chiseled in my past.

The place where I felt Edward reach across and touch my hand. Our fingers interlaced. The strength, the rough hands of that young man. Hands that worked. And yet, gentle hands, warm. I could nearly feel his touch, so close, so strong. I looked down, but his hand wasn’t there. I spread my fingers and stretched out my arm in front of me and as I did, I could see my youth. Not knotted knuckles grayed like driftwood, weathered by time, but young, nimble fingers with painted nails. Pink, bright.

A breeze whispered through the trees and as I turned the carving in the post caught my eye. Elise and Edward. I ran my fingers over the letters. The wood moist. The edges rough, like it had just been carved. It had. Just after our first kiss. And there, on top of the post was his knife. The slender pocketknife he still kept. But not old and worn. Like new. The wood, grooved and yet smooth. The knife I bought him at the country store where we’d shared that first vanilla coke.

And his letterman jacket hung from a nail on the other side. I lifted it from where it hung and wrapped it around my shoulders. Warm and soft, just as I remembered. Just as if he’d run back to fetch something from the car. Just like 1964.

But as I looked around there were no people on the beach, or boats on the lake. The lake, all of it, at least for that moment belonged to me. And still the sound of the geese. The rhythmic call. The sound of life still running across the sky.

Again, I looked across the serenity of the lake. The glassy water reached to eternity. And in that eternity, as I looked out into the blue of the sky and the clouds floating above, I saw Edward again. His smile. His eyes looking right at me. I could feel his hand again in mine. Behind him the sky faded into the soft blue of the hospital wall.

He sat vigil, by my side. In the distance, the sound of the geese faded into silence. And Edward too began to fade. A tear trickled down his cheek. I knew I had but a moment, a fleeting chance to reach him, to let him know. The rustling came from the shore and again, the woody fragrance of the cedar enveloped me. I drew it in and knew it was the right message. He’d understand. He’d know what it meant.

He looked around the room and again at me lying still, gone, but waiting. He drew in a long deep breath through his nose. His head tipped back as his lungs filled with air. His eyes closed and he held the breath like a first kiss on the dock at Sparrow Lake.

“She found it,” he whispered. “Our place. The cedars by the lake.”

The tear now gone from his cheek. His hand still holding mine. He leaned toward me and I could feel the softness of his lips across eternity from there to here and I knew. He knew. He smiled and didn’t look away as the thread disappeared and he was gone.

I pulled his jacket tight around me. And let my feet dangle over the dock. I smiled. This is where it all began. A lifetime of love and happiness. I could wait. It wouldn’t be long. Not because it would be soon, but because the wait to spend eternity together was nothing compared to the eternity itself. I knew it would be soon enough and hoped he’d take the long road. He deserved it. Time to himself. For all he’d done for me, and all he was yet to do.

I breathed in the fresh moist air tinged with a fresh trace of cedar. I ran my fingers one more time across the names carved in the post. And I grabbed Edward’s knife, folded it and put it in his jacket pocket. He’d need it when he arrived.