text: I wish I could remember the first time I met you. The inciting incident of our relationship, so to speak. But the bitter truth is, I can't. People have told me how we met, two little girls barely out of toddlerhood screaming at the top of their lungs and chasing your escaped pet rabbit down the street. It must have been a sight to behold. I have no recollection of that, and neither have you, probably. As it stands, the earliest memory I have of you is a four year old girl with a smile that dimples her cheeks and makes the world light up, two dark, thick twin braids over your shoulders in a white, poofy dress. You were the only one of us kids who wore white clothes; the minute the rest of us stepped outside, we would be covered in dirt and grime. Not you, though, never you. When we were eight, we found a bird's nest at the base of an old tree, blown down and apart by the last night's storm, the eggs still inside, broken. And you cried. You mourned the unborn life once contained in those eggs, and the pain their parents must feel, and I stood by, debating with myself if pointing out the mangled bird-corpse by the bushes that was most likely the mother, struck down by the storm, would make you feel better or worse. I grew up on a farm, and you grew up in a nice one-family-home with a small garden. I saw death nearly every day, but I saw life, too. You were removed from those realities for a very long time, and only years later did I realise what had made you so upset that day; you were confronted, for the first time, with how powerless you were, and how unfair life was. A few months after that, our chicks started hatching, and I took you to see them, because while I was almost sure you had already forgotten about the day after the storm, I hadn't forgotten your puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks, and I wanted to give you something to smile about. When we were eleven, my grandma died. She was out in the stables, tending to her favourite cow she so loved, when she just keeled over and wouldn't wake anymore; at least that's what Uncle had said. I think you were sadder than I was. My grandma was a tough lady, she raised three sons all on her own after grandad took a horse-hoove to the face when he was thirty-one, she survived two wars, one major heart-break when the uncle I never even knew decided he had had enough of the countryside and up and left, never to be seen again, and then survived the second heart-break when my Ma and Pa ran off the road in the curvy patch, leaving only me and Uncle and Grandma and the animals. But Grandma never gave up, she lived on, no matter what anyone threw at her. She would have wanted me to be strong, like her. It was a big funeral concession, despite our oh so small family. Half the village was crammed into the old church to pay their respects, and so were you and your family. You cried so hard when they put her in the ground, and your mother hugged you, and I stood there with dry eyes and took Uncle's hand when he started shaking, because that's what Grandma would have done. The next day when you came over, I got us some biscuits and sat us down on the sofa, and I showed you old photo-albums, big and clunky ones that covered both our laps. You put your head on my shoulder, and you smiled, just a little. When we were fifteen, Uncle got married. It was the party of the year, as any good wedding ought to be. Uncle and his wife were radiant, so happy, and Uncle's best friend and I were co-best-men, and he played the guitar while I sang at the reception, and Uncle cried, his new wife by his side, rubbing his arm. You cried too, because of course you were there, you in your beautiful, flowing red dress and your dark hair pinned back. An image of you in a white dress flashed before my eyes, and I took to drinking. I took two bottles of wine from the bar, grabbed you by the arm and went outside before my new aunt threw the bouquet, because I couldn't handle the thought of that. We sat, and we drank, and you looked beautiful in the moonlight, but I didn't tell you that. I walked you home hours later, in the early hours of a summer-morning, the kind where the first rays of the sun climbed the horizon when you weren't ready yet. You hugged me good-bye and I stumbled on home, off-balance now as your arm wasn't wrapped around mine anymore, and I laid down in the front-yard to watch the sun rise. I fell asleep there and woke up hours later to a group of kids from down the street poking me with a stick and loudly debating if I was dead. A fair question, I thought at the time, hungover and face down in a bushel of grass. When we were six-teen, I graduated, and you did not. I started working on the farm full-time, because that's what my family does, and you kept going to school. Around that time, your parents stopped liking me. At first, I was afraid they had caught me trying to make you smile, or the way my own smile tended to linger when I was around you, but then I realised they must have thought me a bad influence. A distraction, and one always covered in dirt at that. To them, a dirty child living on a farm must have been more acceptable than a dirty adult living on a farm, especially when that dirty adult liked to come over to spend time with their precious daughter, who would without a doubt go on to become a lawyer or an accountant when she played her cards right. They didn't think you were playing your cards right, spending time with me. I started seeing you less and less, but I also got a lot busier, with the calving and the chicks and the pigs giving birth and one of the farm-hands breaking his arm, so we quite literally were two hands short- and suddenly one year had passed, and then two, and you had graduated. I drove to the city in Uncle's old truck just to see your graduation, to watch you positively beam when they handed you your certificate; you, on that stage, in a beautiful violet dress with your hair up, even though I imagined it down. I wondered how you would wear your hair when your dress would be white, but at that point, your parents had been alerted to my being there, and your father frowned at me as if he heard my thoughts, so I left and took that image with me. That evening, you came by the farm dressed in a blue blouse and dark jeans, and your hair was finally down, and you told me your parents had said I was at the graduation, and I told you of course I was. You told me you had set your heart on a university already, in a city so, so far from home, so far from me, and I smiled and bore it. Then you asked me if I would stay here, always, and I told you yes, I would stay here, always. It's what my family does, after all. We sat in the front-yard and watched the stars and talked, quietly. I knew you were going to leave, I had always known, and yet it hurt. It would hurt me as much to watch you go as it had hurt Grandma to watch my unknown uncle go, it already hurt so much I could cry, but I didn't, I wouldn't, not as long as you were still here, and as long as I could take after you were gone. The street-lights turned off and we sat under just the starry sky when I said I didn't want you to go and you said you didn't want to leave me. I asked you if you would ever get married and you said yes, and you asked me the same, and I said no, and my heart cracked. A few months later, you were getting ready to move to the far away city you had told me about, and my heart grew heavier and heavier. The day you left, we stood in front of your father's car together, the moving-van had already driven off earlier. You told me to come visit you sometime, but both of us knew that wouldn't happen. The way was too far, and the farm too big. I told you I loved you, but you didn't understand, because you said it back. We hugged, and you cried, the tears still wet on your cheeks when you got into the car and your father started to drive. I stood there for a long time and only headed home when the air began to cool. I laid down in the front-yard and watched the sun set, my heart burning as though someone was putting their cigarette out on it, and my eyes watering from me refusing to blink and miss a moment of the sunset. I didn't see you for years. We talked on the phone every week, sometimes even twice, but it wasn't enough, never enough for my burning heart. When we were twenty-six, you told me you would be getting married. You had found a job in the city you went to university in, and you had found a man, and you were going to marry him and live in that cursed city with him and maybe have children with him and raise a family. Meanwhile, I would be on the farm with Uncle and his wife, raising calves and chicks and piglets. You asked me if I would come to your wedding, and I said I couldn't. I couldn't make the trip, and I wouldn't be able to bear seeing you in that white dress. Some time later I asked you if you would wear your hair up or down, and you said up, and with a sour taste on my tongue, I thought of course. When we were twenty-eight, you had your first baby, and when we were thirty-one, you had your second. You send me pictures and I didn't know what to do with them. When we were thirty-five, Uncle died. I inherited the farm and hired some more help, and I held my aunt's hand at the funeral. I told you over the phone and you cried, and I could hear your husband consoling you. You said you would have come down for the funeral, and I didn't know what to say to that. A week later, you pulled up in front of the farm and came rushing up the front steps to hug me, crush my heart between our chests and cling to me. I clung right back. We went inside and looked through old photos, and you told me stories about your children and your husband, and I told you that last year, one of the cows had triplets, and that was the big talk of the village for a good couple months. We had even gotten a proper party out of it. After you got back in your car, I didn't see you for a long time. Longer than before, a whole lifetime for some. When we were fifty-three, your children were grown and your husband had left. You didn't really tell me why, but I also didn't need to know. I was mucking out the stables when the wooden door squeaked open and you came in. I leaned on my pitch-fork and stared, the sun behind you catching on silver streaks in your dark hair, open around your shoulders. You were old, but not as old as me. That evening, we ended up in the front-yard with a couple of beers each, and you asked me why I never married. I said I had told you long ago, so long, the day you had left to never come back. »You mean when you said you loved me?« you say. »Yes,« I say. You don't say anything for a long time. »I always loved you,« you say, finally. I stare up at the dark, brightly dotted sky, and take a sip of beer. »I don't think it matters now.« »It could,« you say, insistent. I turn to look at you, the orange street-light painting valleys across your face, but my eyes water, so I close them. »Fine,« I say, »then stay.« Your hand covers mine, and I screw my eyes shut tighter, to keep the wetness from spilling. »I will,« you say, and hold my hand as my tears begin to fall.