Traces of Love
– by Bea Magnan

 

Using the slow, precise motions of someone in a state of shock, her mind still reeling from Michael’s phone call, Annie undressed and got ready for bed.

He had made himself very clear: either she would agree to finalize the arrangements for cosmetic surgery when he telephoned  her the following morning, or the engagement was off.

Michael seemed to believe that she should be grateful for his offer of a second chance at youth, but a small voice in the back of her mind kept asking, “If he loves you, how come you’re not good enough for him the way you are?”

Sitting at her vanity dresser, Annie looked carefully into the mirror. She tugged at her face with her hands, in the same manner as the surgeon had done at her consultation. Then she let her hands fall, and objectively observed her face.

She allowed herself a wry smile as she realized how wrong Michael’s assessment of her lack of vanity was, for she could place almost every line now etched upon her face.

Leaning closer to the mirror, she traced her finger along its hard surface, following the deep line that ran from the outer edge of her left eye halfway across her cheek before it disappeared. It represented the greatest sorrow in her life; the loss of Thomas, who had died just forty days after his birth. Even now, as she watched, a tear formed and rolled its way down that line, somehow reassuring that her baby had not died in vain. He was alive in her heart and her mind, with this knowledge that she could still cry for him, after all these years.

Annie found it strange to realize that what someone else could dismiss as a wrinkle could, to her, be a lifeline.  A comforting thought, that for no matter how short a period of time her one child had been on this earth, there remained a permanent reminder etched upon her face, which marked her indelibly as a mother, even though no other child could ever be born to her.

Using a tissue, she blotted the tear with loving care. She then proceeded to examine her face more closely.

Framing both her eyes were fine webs of crow’s feet, most of which she had developed over the course of her late husband’s illness.  The deeper ones she could attribute directly to those final words of the specialist,  when he had been forced to admit that Edward’s illness had progressed beyond hope.

Woven between the deeper lines were even smaller ones, however; lines that met, weaving in and out like a spider’s web. They represented the nursing and the caring that had become a necessary part of her day-to-day living in those last few months of Edward’s life.

Some of them spoke of pain at the impending death of a loved one, but the smaller, gentler ones spoke also of the nurturing love that had grown within her.  The appreciation on any given day of the visit of a friend – of a good joke they could laugh over – and even of Rug Rat, whom Annie had found as a stray kitten during that time.

He had entertained them both with hours of pleasure as he chased balls of cellophane or twine, growing into the fullness of his life even as Edward’s ebbed.

Rug Rat jumped onto her lap now, almost as if he had been beckoned. He seemed to sense that she needed the warm, unconditional  love that he had given her since he was a kitten. She smiled down at him. And still smiling, looked again into the mirror. There were deep laugh lines that played around her mouth. And her eyes crinkled when she smiled.

Oh how she and Edward had learned to laugh during those last months…not hysterically,  but in genuine joy at the good things life still offered with each passing day.

Reaching her hands once again to her face, Annie pulled her skin upward. The lines disappeared…and there she was, a much younger woman, unblemished by life and unmarked by time. Sighing,  she let her hands fall limply to her lap.

The facelift was to be a prenuptial gift from Michael, perhaps the best way he could think of to show his love for her.

A deathly calm spread through her as she faced what she had sensed all along. Michael loved an image of her, one to which she would always be expected to conform. The purpose of the facelift was to erase the validity of her past, prior to having met him.

In that moment, it seemed, her whole life hinged upon his next day’s telephone call;  for she was afraid of being alone again with no one beside her to love and be loved by.

As she rose to close her blinds, she looked outside and saw that the trees were already starting to change their colors. It was autumn, and she felt a part of it in a very old, very sad way. It was her autumn, too; the autumn of her life.

The next morning she awakened to a crisp fall day, with the sun lending a warm glow to the riot of colors now spreading throughout the foliage.

From the view of her bedroom window, she could see Daniel, her neighbor, raking up the leaves in his yard. Daniel had grown up on a farm, and even now, despite the many years he had lived in the city, he stubbornly tended a small garden in his backyard. Whether it was this streak of stubbornness or his early connection with the land, Annie had never been able to figure out; but there was about him a quiet, peaceful kind of strength, an unassuming air of permanence, to which most people instinctively gravitated.

He had been with her and Edward right to the end, and she had leaned on him for support for months after the funeral. Gradually though, he had weaned her away from her dependence upon him. Although his desertion had hurt her, Annie had appreciated the kindness he had shown her.

With her view suddenly enveloped in muted tones of grey as a cloud passed over the sun, she turned from the window to dress, and to try and deal with the anxiety now clutching at her as she remembered Michael’s impending call.

She had just finished dressing when the doorbell rang, and Annie knew it could not possibly be Michael. He would no more think of showing up without calling first than he would consider wearing a pair of unmatched socks.

She hurried downstairs to open the door, and was greeted by Daniel, holding a huge bouquet of autumn leaves and the last of the fall flowers from his garden.

Tears inexplicably filled her eyes, and she said, “Oh, Daniel, how lovely. Please come in and have a cup of coffee.”

Handing her the bouquet, Daniel said, “You look like the season, Annie. The best things in life come at this time. The best colors, the harvest of food for a good winter, and the best smell in the air after a cold night’s frost.”

Instead of stepping into the house, he continued to hold the front door open, and said, “Why don’t you walk with me to the donut shop, and we can have breakfast together? We could take the scenic route by the river, and see all the changing colors.”

There was a special look in his eyes, and with a leap of her heart, Annie realized that Daniel had never deserted her. Rather, he had respectfully given her a period of grace, – the time to mourn the passing of someone who had been important to both of them.

The sun chose that moment to burst its way through the clouds, and the cloak of worry that had wrapped itself around her shoulders fell away as if by magic.

Grabbing a sweater and her purse, Annie said, “I’d love to.”

Just as she pulled the door shut and was about to lock it, her telephone began to ring.

“Do you want to get that?” Daniel asked. “I don’t mind waiting, you know.”

Annie looked at him and smiled, as she turned the key in the lock. “I know you don’t, Daniel, but that won’t be necessary. I’m sure it’s nothing important,” she hooked her arm through his, “nothing at all.”
—————–

– Bea Magnan is a writer and columnist who is currently working on a series of fictional short stories. See her other very popular articles on this Web site: Schizophrenia, And My Father’s Nightmare Life and The Birth of the Universe.