.

[Orrex]

The rain came from the south in slow, heavy drops. As it drew near she hurried back to the house, stepping carefully along the path between the trees. Already a mist drifted over the lawn to soften the twilight. The air was warm despite the approach of autumn. She closed the door behind her and noticed, almost to her surprise, that her brow was damp and her breath labored slightly in her throat.

She smiled at her age and how it made an effort of even this mild exertion. When she was young she could dance or love for hours, breathless but without tiring. The perspiration cooling on her skin. Her palms hot where she touched him. She remembered.

Later, when he grew weaker, she drew back the sheet to let the night bathe his flesh. Unable to wake and desperate with thirst, he twisted in his fever. She kissed water into his mouth, sipping from the bowl at the bedside and putting her lips to his. With gentle fingers she dabbed his cheeks and forehead with water, until at last he cooled and simply slept.

She would not be permitted to love him. He was a soldier. An American.

"I'll come back to you," he said.
"I know."
It wasn't true. They both knew it, but both wished for it.

In fifty years and more she thought of him often. His tenderness, and the way he held her the night before he left. He knew what she had been, and what she had been forced to do, and he didn't mind. "It was yesterday," he said, and that was all.

The rain stirred the leaves in the garden, blossoms dipping under the weight of late summer, and she thought of him again.

He would be along shortly.

[JitterbugPerfume]

1. this is a beautiful tribute ,Orrex

Thank you

[Orrex]

2. It's only the very least I could do

His feedback and encouragement in this group (as elsewhere) were helpful to so many.

[frogmarch]

3. Yes,

what a lovely tribute to our friend Ed. What you wrote makes me weep when I read it, but it's beautiful, Orrex. I think Ed would have liked it too.

[Orrex]

4. Thank you

Ed had a lyrical quality to his prose that was very different from my default style. This brief passage was both a good exercise for me and a chance to a sensitive and thoughtful writer.

I'm glad that you enjoyed it.

[sybylla]

5. That is such a sweet morsel, Orrex.

I've not been able to visit this forum since I heard oneighty had passed. I spent the day crying. I've been absent from the writing forum and my own writing most of the past six months to work on a local campaign. His passing made me want to read every journal entry he'd made since spring but I couldn't through the tears.

Oneighty was very helpful and encouraging to me. He asked me several times to post something I was working on. I told him since I was working on novel length projects that I had nothing of an appropriate size to share - until last spring. But since then I've been too busy to post it.

Oh, well. I'm sure oneighty would say that it is the regrets in life that makes us philosophers.