I remember our first meeting.

When you looked at me that morning, did you see someone as lost as you were? Was that why you stopped for me, when no one else did?

I didn’t know pity then or kindness. But I recognized them in your eyes, brown like mine.

You walked into that burger-place and returned carrying a heaped paper plate. You watched over me while I ate.

As the plate emptied and the hunger ebbed, I became aware of a different emptiness, an unfamiliar hunger.

I fought it. I didn’t want to become dependent. In the world I’ve known since Mum died, those who couldn’t stand on their own feet didn’t live.

I wasn’t the clingy type anyway.

But when you turned to resume your interrupted journey, I wanted to cry out, to run after you. It took everything I had, pride, mistrust, fear, to beat down that need.

I followed you with my eyes as you walked away from me.

You went a few steps, stopped and turned.

You said, Come, girl.

And I went.

I remember the way you looked that morning: skin as brown as my tangled hair, fat only in comparison to me, the frayed pants, the overlarge shirt, the faded fedora.

Everyone stared at us, as if they were wondering what you were doing with me, or what I was doing with you. No one said a word.

It surprised me, how you could be in a place full of other people but act like you were alone. Then I realized it wasn’t an act. For you, those other people didn’t exist.

I remember the first feel of warm water, a towel, a loving hand.

Afterward, you smiled, saying, You’re a beauty, girl.

And my heart filled with something I couldn’t quite name.

I remember those first uncertain weeks of getting used to each other.

Like that day…

I had been yearning for some sun but didn’t want to make demands.

You understood. You opened the door wide, took out the chair, and said, Come, girl.

We sat on the porch, looking. Not that there was much to look at, a little rectangle of a garden choking with weeds, a wooden fence, and other peoples’ much better-kept houses.

Everyone who walked past stared, as if they were seeing ghosts.

I remember the stories you told me.

Your stories ranged over millions of years and gazillions of miles, from the Permian extinction to dwarf stars.

But you never told me your story. That I pieced together from the pictures, squatting like tombstones on a rack full of old books.

You and a woman, hand in hand, looking like your hearts were breaking with happiness.

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You and she, clutching a bundle, smiling as if you had won the world.

A boy with a gap-toothed smile.

A young man with the same gap-toothed smile, standing between you and she, wreathed in smiles.

I remember the morning the thaw set in.

We were going to the burger-place as usual, for our breakfast. The woman next door looked up from her plants, calling, Good Morning.

You didn’t react.

Later, you said she had been watching us for days, biding her time. The nosey cat, you said, and smiled.

The next morning, when she said good morning, you said good morning too.

One day, you said good morning before she did.

One day, she asked how I was, and you stopped to answer.

So it spread, from neighbor to neighbor.

You didn’t visit much, or lounge with other old men, grieving for the gone times.

But your door was open for anyone who wanted to come in, sit, talk. Many did.

I remember how we met her.

Every morning, we’d buy breakfast from the burger-place and eat it in the park.

Every morning, she’d sit on a bench by the duck pond, always alone.

One morning you murmured, Go talk to her, girl.

I looked at you, a question in my eyes.

You nodded.

I didn’t want to go. I went because you asked me. But when I got close, feeling nervous because the old fear of rejection still lived in me, I sensed in her what I had sensed in you and you had sensed in me.

Loneliness.

And a weariness, of life.

That was when my fear left me.

I didn’t approach her directly. I just stood close to her.

She was staring at the duck pond, though I don’t think she saw the ducks or the pond.

At last, when I was beginning to think she’d never take her eyes off whatever she was seeing and look at me, she did.

She smiled, such a tiny smile.

We sat, neither of us saying a word.

You had gone ahead as if you didn’t know I wasn’t with you. Then you came back calling for me, acting as if you had lost me.

She gave another smile. A little less tiny. And said, Goodbye.

One day you doffed your fedora and she waved.

One day you said good morning and she said good morning too.

One day she brought a sandwich and asked you whether she could share it with me.

One day you told her your name and she told hers.

One day, you told her about the woman and the boy, and me.

The next day, she talked about trying to be a writer, of losing a child, of a marriage falling apart.

So our friendship began.

She never came to our house.

We never went to hers.

The park was our place.

I remember how I realized something was wrong inside you.

You were losing your appetite, sleeping badly, and moaning in your sleep.

Even on burning hot days you shivered.

You told the neighbors nothing, though I think they noticed.

You did tell her, the day after our last visit to the doctor.

She listened, said you should have an operation. She hesitated, and said she’ll give you the money.

You smiled, said no; wrong place, too far gone.

Later on, when we were sitting in the porch, a blanket wrapped round you even though the day burnt, you said, You are all I need now, girl.

My heart burst with happiness, and broke with grief.

I remember when the candle that was you began to burn on both ends.

You stopped going to the park; walking was too painful.

You stopped making meals; just getting out of bed every morning tired you out.

Neighbors brought food for us. You barely ate but made sure I did.

I sat with you. I slept at your side. Sitting, you’d keep your hand on me. Sleeping, I’d curl up to you.

Neither of us had any time to waste.

I remember that night.

You drifted in and out of sleep, but it was not normal sleep. Your breathing got ragged. I knew you were slipping away. But you never took your hand off me.

Sometime in the morning, when the sun was up, the day was warm, and you were cold, getting colder, your hand tightened, and you gasped, Love you, girl.

It was the first time. I knew it was also the last.

I don’t remember anything else.

The cemetery was like the park.

Someone had given me your fedora. I sat by you holding it.

People said things about you, things I knew and things I didn’t know.

They talked about what you did, not world-stopping things, but things that made someone’s world a little better.

It was almost over when she walked in.

I hadn’t seen her since we stopped going to the park.

She stood looking at you for a long time.

Then she looked at me and said, Hello, girl.

When it was over, she came to me and said, Come, girl.

And I went.

The fedora was the only thing I took.

In the speeding car, she told me how you called to say you’d be dead soon.

I looked at her but she didn’t look at me. She stared straight ahead, at the winding road.

She said, He asked me if I could give you a home.

I looked up and saw the tears filling her eyes, brown like mine, and yours

She smiled through them. I said yes.

**

She turns around from the computer. I’m writing a story, about him; and about you. He told me if he didn’t meet you, he’d never have come out of the cocoon of bitterness he was in.

I want to tell her that I too was trapped in a cocoon, of mistrust and despair, until I met you.

An image comes to my mind, of you and me, a pair of butterflies emerging from our cocoons, fluttering away into a world full of sunlight.

She asks, Do you want to listen to what I’ve written?

I put my paw on your fedora.

I bark.

She laughs and starts reading.