As consciousness became more real, I became aware of her hand in mine. It lacked the substance it had just moments before. Instead it felt small and frail as if it was just there without really being there.

I open my eyes and see Veronica lying in our bed facing me. It’s still dark outside, but I can see how her skin is pallid and drawn tight across her face. A strand of what remained of her hair has drifted down over her eyes, which were dark and hollow. I can hear the steady stream of oxygen moving through the nasal tube that was fitted underneath her nose.

There’s movement behind her and I can see Eleanor’s nose peeking out from underneath the covers. She’s asleep, curled up against Veronica’s back.

Slowly I sit up, moving my feet over the edge of the bed and onto the floor. Trying to make as little movement as possible so as not to disturb Veronica, I stand up and carefully walk across the floor to the door.

“Where are you going?” Veronica’s voice is slow and breathless.

Turning around I can see that her eyes are open, watching me.

I lie back down on my side so that our foreheads are almost touching.

“How did you sleep?” I ask.

Veronica doesn’t respond, but instead closes her eyes and exhales a deep breath of air, which was all the answer I needed. Sleep was elusive these days and happened in fits and spurts throughout the day and night.

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

Veronica manages a slight shake of her head.

“Where’s Eleanor?” she asks.

I point behind her and she smiles. Even her smile is frail and it shakes as the muscles in her mouth and cheek contract.

She wants to be close to her baby, so I help Veronica roll over; maneuvering the oxygen tube so that she isn't laying on top of it. I gently scoot Eleanor towards her mother and in her sleep, Eleanor nuzzles in. I move across the bed so that I can face Veronica, joining in on this family snuggle time.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” Veronica whispers this over and over again into Eleanor’s hair. She closes her eyes and I think for a moment that she’s fallen asleep, but her eyes, once again, flutter open.

“Michael,” Veronica starts, “I think I am going to die today.”

I gaze into her eyes for a moment before responding, “Yeah, I think so.” I could see it within her—how her body was an anchor to a soul that was asking to be freed.

“What do you think it’ll be like?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply, “but I think it’s going to be wonderful.”

“How do you know?” Veronica asks.

I pause for a moment; gathering my thoughts as I think of what to say next. “Because while I can see your body splinter apart, I can still see you shining through it. And the longer you’ve carried this sickness, the brighter you’ve become. And when it is your time, I think you’re going to go supernova.” I reach across the space between us and take her hand in mine. “You aren’t this sickness or this shell, but I love all of you.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Veronica closes her eyes, smiling. “You’re a good man,” she whispers, taking her time to form the words—each taking considerable effort. “You’re a good husband. And you’re a really good dad.”

There’s so much space between her words and in my responses. It felt good, for once, to just lay there without thinking about what needed to happen next and not to give into the ego’s pull to fill a silent void with my own voice. There’s so much I want to say, but as I examine what it is I want to say, it was for my own service. It would start with, “Before you go, I have a few things to get off my chest,” but at this moment, none of it mattered. While I could have laid out all the mistakes I had made as a husband and parent for hours without end, none of it mattered. It was me placing myself ahead of her in this moment and playing into the same tropes of shame and unworthiness that have dogged me for years. As much as I wanted to lay at her feet and beg for forgiveness, in this moment I saw that it was myself that I needed to forgive.

As these thoughts tumbled through my head, Veronica’s hand drifted from mine. I didn’t realize it until her thin, boney fingers found mine again.

“Where did you go?” she asked.

And I thought about all those moments before. All the guilt and shame. Everything that drove me to push Eleanor away. Everything that drove me into that constant loneliness even with Eleanor. The journey across space and time until I was back here, with the girls I loved, at the exact moment that I had tried so desperately to escape and ignore.

“I’m still here,” I tell Veronica. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The steady flow of oxygen isn’t matching her own breaths as each inhale and outbreath is longer. It was this constant cycle of death and rebirth. With each exhale, I wondered if it would be her last, but slowly and steadily Veronica would draw in another slow breath of air and be reborn.

“Do you remember when we first met?” I ask her. Veronica’s eyes flutter open in reply. “I had run that trail I don’t know how many times and when I run, I am always just running. No time for anything else. Just run, run, run till I’m done. But then, there you were: this pretty redhead right in the middle of the trail—on that bridge—stopping me dead in my tracks with your smile.

“There was something inside me that cracked open at that moment and even though I couldn’t form words around what it was, I knew that a part of me loved you at that moment. Maybe it was the sweat and pheromones, but it worked.”

“Why?” Veronica asked. “Why did you love me?”

“Because,” I respond after some thought, “everyone that I knew up until you had always asked or demanded love from me. You never asked for my love. You never took my love. But you were Love and you made me be in Love.

“I had never thought I could feel this way. I never thought that Love could be so, but it was. With you. I love you with all my might, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my strength, with all the peace, joy, and beauty in this world and across the universe.

“I will love you until the end of time.

“I will love you until the day comes that I breathe my last. But even as I breathe my last, I will still remain in Love with you. It will live on through Eleanor and through her children and her children’s children. You are my all and our love will never fail.”

As I spoke, Veronica’s eyes closed again and I could hear between my words that her breaths, between the inhales and exhales, were getting more spacious.

Death and rebirth.

Death and rebirth.

“You can let go, Veronica,” I whisper to her. “You can let go.”

And she does. Her final breath rattles out of her lungs and she is gone. I can feel something move through me and I know that it was her love reminding me that it was still there—that it would always be there.

“I love you,” I whisper to her body.

“I love you,” I say to her love.

I wrap my arms around Eleanor and Veronica, cradling them gently, and close my eyes.

We are not alone.