* * * * * * *
The next morning I woke up earlier than usual, and when I turned my head to look at Cody, I barely contained a gasp. He had hair in his ears, and his hands had dark spots on them, and his stubbly whiskers were white as snow, like an old man’s. He looked fifteen or twenty years older than yesterday. Giving up the crystal had left him defenseless, it seemed.
I gazed at him in horror, and unwillingly tried to guess how much longer he might live. A week? Ten days? I didn’t know if he’d keep aging that fast every day or if it would slow down at some point. But one thing was for certain; he wouldn’t make it long. Not like that.
I thought of the day when he first walked into the Dairy Dip and swept me up in his arms with a laugh. So young, so handsome, so full of life, with his silly little grin and his blue, blue eyes. It seemed like a hundred years ago; all the more so when I saw him lying there looking like a man on the cusp of old age. I loved him so much, for so many different reasons, and now it seemed that I was about to lose him already.
I remembered my own words, about how I wouldn’t be sorry even if a little time was all we ever had. They seemed prophetic now, and harsh. It’s so easy to make promises, when nothing is at stake and you know they’ll never be put to the test. Now I was staring Death in the face, and I wondered if I had the strength to keep my word. Jenny would have told me I deserved better. Maybe most people would have thought the same thing, even if they didn’t come right out and say so.
Mama would have said that love with strings attached is worthless.
I reached out to run my hand along the side of his face and then through his short stubbly hair. Somewhere beneath that weather-beaten surface I could still see the ghost of the boy I’d known. I could feel him, with my heart if not with my hands, and I felt a flood of love mixed with sorrow. I kissed him gently on the lips, not hard enough to wake him, and then put my arms around him with my head on his chest, as if holding on to him fiercely enough might ward off the doom that was settling slowly but surely on us both. I closed my eyes, like a child who can’t bear the sight of evil, and for a little while I could pretend that nothing had changed.
As I lay there, and as I so often had done in the past, I began to put some of my feelings into words, into verses that would express at least a little bit of how I felt and how much I loved him. And when I was done, the work read like this:
Cody
Sometimes at night I think I dream,
Of blossoms tossed by summer breeze,
While weaved amongst my flowing hair,
Beneath the rustling white-oak trees.
I watched you gather a blade of rye,
In June all soft and palest green,
To taste the sweet and loving earth,
So fresh and cool and misty-clean.
Your skin was warm as summer hay,
The sun had kissed all golden brown,
Your touch as soft as the breeze that day,
That curled your dampened hair around.
Oh, your love was all the world to me,
And the thought that you were mine,
More beautiful then than a shining star,
When only one is in the sky.
For who could ever take your place?
And who could touch my heart so deep?
And how could I ever count the ways,
Your love has meant so much to me?
Though storms may rage and dark may fall,
And heartache come for a year and a day,
I still feel the warmth of your hand in my own,
And your love washes sorrow forever away.
I tinkered with the words a bit, till the work pleased me. I thought I might have it printed on rose-paper and framed in a wooden frame, to give to him so he’d always know what he meant to me.
Thinking thus, I gradually drifted back to sleep, still holding him close while I could.