text: It was an uneventful night when I saw a new woman sitting completely alone in the common room reading. Her brown hair was long and wavy but it wasn’t until she peered up at me that we both realized who the other was. She nearly dropped her book and I almost fell right out of my wheelchair. I tried looking away and pretending that I didn’t just see her for the first time in over fifty years. No use. She was already standing up and walking toward me with her mouth gaping open. “David?!,” she got out. “Is that you?” “It’s me,” I said slightly ashamed. “I can’t believe it..., wow..., this is wild! How long’s it been?” “Since I moved. Many, many years ago.” “It feels like ten lifetimes,” she said smiling. “Are you a resident here?” “Indeed I am. Can I assume you just got here yourself?” “I arrived this morning from the hospital. I fractured my hip last week and my doctor wants me to do some physical therapy before I go back home, he said this was the place to do it.” “I see. I’ve been here for a couple of months myself,” I said, trying to keep my stare focused on her smile and pretend not to notice the tears welling up in her eyes. “David..., it’s so nice to see you again,” she said before wrapping up. “I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about over these next few days.” I suppose it was serendipitous, the two of us ending up at the same nursing home after all these years. It’s true that our hometown was always on the smaller side, so it’s not like there were many options available in the first place. But then I’d moved away after high school. Halfway across the country. I couldn’t bring myself to stay in the state. Not after what happened between her and I. It all hurt too much, passing by the same trees and houses and street corners where we’d made so many memories near as sweethearts. How I ended up back here was a miracle in and of itself. Looking back, I can safely say that reading was always “our thing.” And Milton’s Paradise Lost was “our book.” The book which we bought two copies of together and never finished. We’d take turns reading aloud the poetic lines and then contemplating them for hours on end before picking it back up and starting again. After the arguing began however, we’d go on to pick it up less and less until the dust permanently settled onto its cover. The decision to end everything eventually fell upon my shoulders and my psyche and no matter what I tried to do in ridding myself of the thought, nothing worked. The day finally came where I turned to walk out of the apartment once and for all, leaving her behind in tears, with a broken heart, and with a torn spirit. She went on to marry someone else about a year later. A lawyer, I believe. Not a month has gone by since that fateful decision where I haven’t had some type of dream about the ceremony itself; A beautiful wedding in a broken-down chapel; rays of sunlight still shining through its cracks in the rooftop, impaling the dense air with translucent touches of promised hope that pierce the fog in permanent halves. Beacons from high above all beaming prisms of rich color through the stained glass windows and onto walls half- sprawled with the bright vines of deep green emeralds. She stands center-stage; framed perfection. A magnum opus wrapped in white threads of pure redemption. Untouched skin; restored to life and ever-pampered by real Seraphim who flew down from His side and saved the star-crossed lovers from their eventual suburban fate of celestial disappointment. I’d found true happiness at last through her eternal smile. “Does anyone have any reason...,” the preacher utters the words I’d been dreading to hear as she peers through her peripheral in my general direction. My entire body freezes shut--disabled by well-deserved humility and a forced life of self-imposed silence. Through the veil’s intricate lace; a microscopic image of our entire universe and its timeline starts taking shape as it simultaneously begins unravelling at both ends, gaining exponential purpose within the glistening liquid of reflective teardrops being formed real time inside the bride’s outlined-eyes. Then I wake up. Maybe things would’ve turned out drastically different had we would’ve stayed together. Maybe neither of us would’ve gone on to have the lives which we actually did. Instead we could’ve married each other and had our own kids, gone on our own trips, made our own memories. But we didn’t. That’s not the way it was meant to play out. Or was it? And it was actually I who ruined everything? I had to know for sure. And if so, I had to find some type of forgiveness within it all. Lisa was scheduled to stay a week, two at most, just until her hip had healed up. A couple of months later and she was still pushing me around the hallways in my wheelchair, going to the common room, the crafts room, the library, all the while speaking and sharing memories with me and I with her. Her hip had healed up just fine, but she was intent on spending more time together, so kept asking for extensions and finding reasons to stay a bit longer. Christmas was nearing so I asked a good friend to help find a nice little ring which I could give her as a sign of our reestablished friendship, nothing more. Presenting it to her one night in the common room, I pulled out the small little blue box with a thin velvet bow on top before opening my mouth to speak. “Lisa...,” I said, fumbling to find the right words for my long-awaited speech. “I...” “You don’t have to say a thing. It’s all over and done with. It has been for a long time.” “I know, but still..., all these years..., I’m so sorry for everything, I should’ve never walked out the front door that day.” She quickly looked away and wiped her cheek with her delicate hand before turning back around. “I promised a very long time ago that I’d get you your ring, one way or another.” She opened the box and looked at it for a long time before finally sliding the ring onto her finger and holding out her hand, admiring its shine. “And you did,” she said, smiling. “And I did--even if it took fifty years.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a yellowed Paradise Lost-- her very own copy that we bought so long ago and never finished. “Better late than never,” she said, taking my hand up in hers. “Let’s read.”