Seasons

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I met her in the spring. Her pink dress blossomed off the wooden bench she was sat on. Her surroundings,thick, freshly green aspens and an elegant fountain, arching water from its spouts. Birds sang their sweet song all around, announcing the presence of perfection.  She was the center piece of it all.

She was reading a book, of one’s name I’ll always remember now. She sat with a graciousness while perusing the pages. Her fingertips, gentle, pinching the corner of one page, flipping onward. Her blue eyes were captivating. I could hardly peek into them as they were occupied with the words she held. Her hair, blonde and lush, was held by a tie to keep it out of her face. She never wore it up in the years after, except to read.

I walked over and sat on the bench. I had never done this with, well, anyone. My heart never screamed to me like it did in that moment, never took control of my being quite like it did with her. My anxious nature had no say in the matter, buried under my awe of her.

“Man, what a, what a beautiful day today.” I stumbled through this like I just fell down a flight of stairs. She looked over at me for a moment. I couldn’t gauge her reaction, until after a beat, she started to chuckled a bit, covering her mouth with her opened book.

“Yeah. Today is really something isn’t it?” I could feel my face turn flush. She thought I was weird didn’t she? Fuck.

“Truly.” I cleared my throat and laughed. I really hadn’t thought this through. My thumbs swirled around one another. I was browsing my mental files of anything to say. She beat me to the punch.

“Allison.” She stuck her hand out toward me. I placed my hand in it, shaking gently. Her hand was soft. I’m not sure what it was, but I felt a little more comfortable at that point.

“Will. Really nice to meet you.” I paused a moment. “So, what are you reading there?”

“The Great Gatsby. It’s more of a reread,” she snickered. Her smile was accentuating her charming dimples. “I must’ve sifted through this story fifty times at this point. It’s just so beautiful, you know?” She motioned to display the environment around us. “Just like this beautiful day.” Embarrassing, I know.

“Agreed one-hundred percent. I love that story.” I had never read it all the way through. I only read it in high school. Ah yes, my “glory days”, where I had mastered the art of “bullshitting”. In fact, and only managed to glance at a handful of pages before saying to myself “fuck it” and looking up the plot for an assignment.To this day, I think she knew I was lying too, but her sweet heart let me get away with it.

“There’s just something so masterful about it.” I could see her eyes light ablaze. They were a burst of blue.They were the ocean, pulling me further and further with their tide. I wanted to get lost at sea. “There’s something so tragic yet stunning about it. Gatsby has his entire world revolving around Daisy, and no matter what he does, it always feels like Daisy is just out of reach.” She closed the book on her lap and took a deep breath in. “That green light… Truly beautiful.” I finally snapped out of her eyes soothing sway.

“Oh, yes. Absolutely. Completely agree with you there.” I apologized to her for this seeming lack of interest later on. She said she knew I was nervous. Thank God.

We both sat there a minute or two with no words flying between us. The birds carried on with their song, the wind whispered into my ears, and I felt just as much comfort with her in the silence. Eventually, I spoke.

“Listen, considering this is such a-“

“A beautiful day?” We both keeled over with laughter.

“Yes, a beautiful day. Maybe we have good chances for the night to be beautiful too? Like a beautiful movie? Or beautiful food sat on a beautiful plate?”

“Now that, I think that would be beautiful Will.”

This spring night bloomed into other nights with one another. Around the third night is when I kissed her. Her lips held mine tender. They told me that I was in love. Those lips would tell me that almost every single day for the rest of my life.

Our wedding day was the setting Allison always dreamed about. It was a wedding by a lake, where on its horizon shades of pink and orange strewn themselves along, dragging down the beaming summer sun to make space for a glistening moon. I wanted to keep the wedding small, which she compromised on. She was good about that. Her parents and close friends came along, across the aisle from them my parents and friends, as well as our trusted ring bearer, our dog Jax.

She said my vows were perfect, but I couldn’t remember what I said, at all. I was set adrift within her eyes again. I always was. Lost at sea, no care or need for saving. The waves gently guiding my heart further into love.

Since we kept the attendance quaint, we used leftover budget on an absolute behemoth of a wedding cake. Seven layers towered upon themselves, pink ribboned frosting dancing about the white backdrop. The inside of the cake was a soft, tender red velvet. It was Allison’s favorite. She swore to me it was one of the few foods she could live off of. I would challenge at times, jokingly of course, that eating red velvet cake forever would make her unhealthy, and she would promptly response with a “go fuck yourself” every time.

She took the first bite of cake while the group surrounding us roared in celebration. I remember the bits of it glued themselves to her smile, her perfect smile. A smile I would never find myself getting over. It was a smile that spoke through its teeth, telling me, “it’s all going to be okay”. The world’s chaos stood orderly, at attention, for it.

The rest of the night we danced. Allison’s grandma, sharp for a woman nearly ninety-five,threw a couple moves on the floor that night. Allison was joyed at the sight of her reliving her youth in a sense. I was just surprised she didn’t throw out a hip. Both of our families joined in too. They always got along. Our mothers would talk to one another weekly, both chatting away through the phone, supplementing their conversation with a glass of red wine (or two, or three). Our fathers planned yearly trips to fish together. Allison’s dad started his fishing journey on an amateur footing with my father, but in due time both were corralling some of the most exquisite fish the Pacific had to offer.

After the wedding Allison and I went to our hotel and… well I bet you know what happened. Every curve of her body fit perfectly within the palms of my hand. Her lips caressed every inch of my body, as mine did to hers. There was a deep passion, an indescribable care that held in the air when we made love. No pressures, no obligations, just an innate connection of our spirits, yearning to take care of one another.

Allison and I held our gaze upon one another after. It must have been an hour of this before we decided to go to bed, but I could have looked into her soul for the rest of my life. Each blink my eyes were forced to take was another moment that I was not able to see my one.

Our children loaded up two compact trunks full of essentials and sentimental items. Shades of amber and yellow descended around them, floating along the breeze. Ashton, our son, required a hooked bungie cord to contain the back end of his car. Our daughter, Lily, had most of her things neatly organized in my car. She was only going to school and hour away, and she didn’t feel any urgency to pay for campus parking.

We watched them load the last of their things from the porch. I remember Allison squeezed my hand tight. I looked to her, and tears began to breach her eyelids. I cried too. It was the first time either of us felt any sense of loss. This loss, of course, was hopeful. Our babies had developed their wings, strong and full, and were ready to take flight. It was sad and beautiful and mind boggling all the same. Life flashed by us, and it was as much a new chapter for us as it was for our children.

Ashton was the first to leave. I could tell he couldn’t wait to get the hell out of that driveway in his rusted, beat up red shit box car. He was convinced “Georgina” as he named it (I know, stupid car name), would make it the nearly one-thousand mile drive to the coast of California. I wasn’t at all convinced, and had planned some time off work to make sure I could reach him if it broke down. It didn’t. By the grace of God, it didn’t).

“I love you mom. I’m gonna miss you guys.” He gave Allison a warm embrace. Her tears streamed towards Aston’s shoulders, puddling along the green cotton atop his collarbone.

“I love you so much, baby.” He finished their embrace, taking a step back and beaming with a smile. He had the same smile as his mother. He got lucky.

“Dad! I love you so much.” He wrapped his arms around me, and I to him. I squeezed a little tighter than I had before. I think part of me didn’t want to let him go at all.

“You’re gonna miss us one day.” I laughed. “Just don’t get any STD’s or shit. Keep that thing wrapped.” Yeah… I was never one to have a “good” joke on hand.

“Will!” Allison gave me a slap on the shoulder.

“Best advice I got for you kid.” It wasn’t. I was unfortunately consumed by dreaded “dad humor”.

“I’ll take it.” Ashton flashed that smile again. “Well, I should probably get moving. I love you both.” Ashton rushed down the driveway. He opened his driver side door, which was accompanied by a loud, horrific squeal, and gave us a gentle wave.

“Wait!” Lily pounded on his window. “My fucking hug?”

“Language, please.” Allison was not too big a fan of “potty mouth”, something I had yet to clean up after twenty-one years of marriage.

“Sorry.” She wasn’t.

Ashton popped the door back open, piercing our ears with the door’s cries once more.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love, love, love you.”

He finished and drove off.

“Well kiddo, I should probably get you over to campus. We should get you there on time for move in.”

“Wait.” Lily seemed a bit more hesitant. “Should I see if I missed anything in my room? Or in my closet? Or bathroom? Did I remember my loofah?”

“You got it all sweetheart.” I could tell she was nervous. I was the first time I went off on my own too. I hadn’t found myself in much of any way until Allison. “Besides, if you miss something, I can zip by within an hour. You gave us an easier journey than your brother’s.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Hey, it’s going to be alright.” Allison stepped forward and held Lily in her arms. I remember seeing Lily’s eyes well with tears of her own. She had those same blistering blue eyes as her mother. Again, my children were blessed. If they got any sliver of my genetics, they would’ve been fucked.

“We love you, and your father and I are so proud of you. You go explore the world, find who you are. Whatever happens we will always be here for you.”

“Thank you, mom.” She took a deep breath and pasted a half-assed smile on her face. “Alright dad, I think I’m ready.”

“Alright, sweetie.” I grabbed my keys from my pocket, swinging the carabiner around my index finger a couple times (I could never help it). I gave Allison a kiss on her cheek. The saltiness of her tears landed upon my tongue. “It’s gonna be okay, baby.”

“I know. It’s just hard.”

“I know.” Lily and I hopped into my car and took off. Allison was waving to us from the porch. She flashed that perfect smile, but I could tell this time it was to hide the sadness she felt. I felt it too. We accepted soon enough that it was normal. We would still see the kids often. Ashton, to no surprise, did end up missing us, and came home for almost every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lily came home often to start, maybe a little too often, but eventually found her own friends and her own interests and her own love, and she blossomed just how Allison always had, from that first spring I met her.

As the holidays came and passed, and Allison and I started to show our age, I still always saw the perfect woman. I still would get lost in those blue eyes, that no matter the age, never lost their glow. I still would be entranced by that smile, that spoke of our love.

Of course like any couple we had our bickering and our fights, especially in the fall. The shift of weather could shift the moods of even the purest souls, I’m sure. But as I look back now, most of those times are faded from my memory. It never mattered, because no matter how much our mouths would yell and scream, our hearts would always hold one another and dance. She was mine forever, and she had me forever.

Snow is beginning to caress the landscape now. The cycle of an aspen leaf has concluded. Branches all about me hang bare. In a matter of months they will blossom with vibrancy once more, something I won’t be able to accomplish. Cancer is once ravenous bitch, and I am not the fighter that my younger self used to be. Lily and Ashton sat with me in the hospital, begging me to go through as much treatment as I could. They said it could extend my time here by a handful of months. The pain didn’t seem worth it to me. If I’m destined to die now, it’ll be in my home.

Lily and Ashton both moved back home with me for these last few months. They brought my beautiful grand babies to spend some time with their withered grandpa. They are a delight, full of energy and an excitement for life. That’s how I used to be, and how Allison always was. It has been nice to be surrounded by that again. Children have this sort of innate curiosity that is something to behold. Most of the kiddos rush off into the woods behind my house nowadays, climbing in the trees (somehow not slipping of branches and breaking their arms) and working to capture any rabbit or squirrel they can find. They tell me they want their “own pet”. They have yet to be successful, and I have a hunch they may never obtain that dream.

I sit here, writing this, on the wooden bench I built outside of our home. I had to make it from memory alone, but I must say, I don’t think I did too bad of a job. When I’m here, I glance next to me and see her, in that blossoming dress, and I feel like myself again. In the wood behind me, the birds sing with vibrancy this time of year. They all have their own unique song, and together they manage to manifest a harmonic choir, flaunting natures beauty. It was a song for her.

Next to me, is my favorite book. I must have read it dozens of times by now, especially in these last few years. I rant to Lily and Ashton about it every single day, how Gatsby, in a sense, got fucked over in comparison to me. He was never able to obtain that green light, but me. I got a lifetime with the woman I was destined to grow with. She isn’t here now. She is up above me, frolicking among the clouds and the stars, looking down on me with those perfect blue eyes. I look above now and I see them. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I smile, realizing one day I will get to see them again. I’ll get to hold her again, soon enough. She said in her final days she would be waiting for me, and when I get up there, I know she will be reading on that bench, the world singing her praises, and there will be me, nervous as hell again, to ask her for just one spring night.