It’s all l I have left of her. She offered the locket six months after the bombs fell, a heart-shaped ward of delicate filigree against nuclear winter’s brutal breath.
“My mother gave me this on my fifteenth birthday. She’d worn if for as long as I could remember, and said it was time to pass it on. I felt I was finally a woman.”
Outside, snowdrifts writhed in incessant wind. We had hiked twenty-miles looking for food, and found only exhaustion. She had fallen towards the end, and I had carried her, her arm around my shoulder and her feet dragging. Neither of us could pretend she would make it any further. I had doubts about myself.
She hunkered on the shack’s floor, leaning against empty cardboard boxes, eyes half-closed, arm extended, “Please take it.” A slight smile. “I’ll always be with you.”
I took her hand in both of mine. She squeezed weakly; her hand too cold.
“I’ll always sustain you,” I said, finishing the couplet from our wedding vows which we recited during the best and worst times.
I tore up scattered boxes and made her a piecemeal blanket. The shack had a single window, and the door closed securely, which was a blessing. I found a twisted aluminum TV dinner tray, (how much would I give for a triangle of reheated peas), flattened the tray as well as possible, and used it as the bed of a small cardboard fire. I found an old wrench, warmed it by the fire, and put it between her inner and outer jacket.
“Where will you go from here?” She asked slowly; the question a sledge hammer to my chest.
“We’ve always thought south was best.” I bluffed a sense of humor, fighting dizziness and desperation. “Not that that’s been true so far.”
She chuckled, “Not so far.” Pause. “Is there a cracker left?”
I answered gently, “They’ve been gone for days.”
She breathed slowly, and we sat together.
“Paul, it’s all over, isn’t it?
I didn’t want to address the obvious. Not yet. “The world? Maybe. Maybe down south it’s better. It has to be warmer in Mexico, and the equator is just a hike away from there.”
“Are you happy with how we spent our lives?”
I took her hands again. Her fingers held no response. “I love you dearly, and I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m the luckiest man alive. I’ll always be with you.”
“I’ll always sustain you,” she said as she drifted into sleep.
The next morning, I was unable to wake her. I burned more cardboard than was wise, and held her close, but in the early evening she sighed one last time, and was gone. I held her until light came through the window, bearing loneliness and deprivation.
…..
I stayed in the shack three weeks. I left eighteen days ago. Nothing remains out here. I trudge a wasteland of snowy emptiness. I’m certain now that she is the last person I will ever truly see. Sometimes I spot brief shadows of others in the swirling snow, but they never approach. I’ve stopped calling to them. What would I say to them anyway? May I come with you?
There! Is that someone? Why do they toy with me? They are probably waiting for my collapse, so they can steal the last of my food. Food that is almost gone. Just one bite left. I open the locket. I didn’t think it would come to this, but I am so very hungry. Forgive me. A piece of her heart in a heart-shaped locket. It’s all I have left of her. And she sustains me.
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