The Hour That Never Stood Still

There will be a night, years from now, when I wake suddenly certain I have heard your voice again. It's raining against the windows. Darkness stretching through every room. For one terrible moment, you are living somewhere beneath the same starless heavens.

First there is the sea. A cold shore near winter. Your coat lifting softly in the wind while the tide pulled at the rocks below us. Your gaze fixed upon some distant place farther than water or the dying season. I remember thinking loving you would ruin me.

And before that, the dream. One of those inward wanderings that come before grief finds its true face. A vast corridor filled with portraits darkened by time. Every painted face carrying your expression. Every pair of eyes burdened by some ancient farewell. When I met you later beneath the old oak tree, I knew your sorrow already.

You laughed once. That moment belongs before the others bury it. Your laughter startling even you, as though joy had entered the room by mistake. Suddenly the whole world changed. Even the dying roses upon the mantel seeming briefly restored. The happiest I ever saw you.

Now a churchyard at dusk. Snow falling through branches. A grave still unopened. My whole-body aching with the knowledge of what waits beneath the coming years. Someone nearby speaking softly, their words vanishing into the gathering dark. Only your name remaining clear. Always your name.

And afterward, the long season of mirrors. Rooms where your absence seemed to breathe beside me. Books left unopened. Curtains pale with morning. Distant bells drifting through rain. At times I believed I saw you crossing a crowded city street, your dark clothing moving among strangers, your face turned just enough to awaken hope before destroying it.

Yet on the first evening beside the sea, you beautiful enough to make eternity seem possible. The moon hanging low above the water. The horizon dissolving into storm. You are speaking about death as though it were a country visited long ago and secretly longed for ever since. I loved you most at that moment, before grief acquired its true face, before loss rooted itself in every beautiful thing.

And now I return once more to the future. Rain against the windows. The enormous darkness. My heart older than the stars outside. I rise from bed then and cross the silent room, believing for one impossible instant that if I open the door, you will stand waiting beyond it, pale as moonlight, untouched by time, with all the lost years trembling behind your eyes.