Wishing On The Moon

Rose walked out of her office in an invisible bubble of anguish that even the chill wind couldn’t penetrate.

It can’t be true! The cry came from somewhere very deep within her. Heaviness lay like deadweight in her stomach. Hadn’t it been enough agony to go through it the first time around, without having to endure it again now? Yet there was no escape, she had to face reality. She had no choice, she had to leave her husband Gabriel.

Without her being aware, she had somehow managed to make her way home on the train. As she entered the house they had lovingly called a home for the past seven years, she remembered the day they had come here to see it for the first time. They had held each other as they said that it was the perfect house for a large family. Everything had changed. Her life then had been neatly mapped out in front of her. She would marry Gabriel, have three children, give up working and be a mother in the truest sense of the word. It had seemed a perfect future. Now it would never happen. There would be no children. No happy ending. She couldn’t bear to stay there. The house made her feel miserable. She walked out, slamming the door behind her.

Rose walked along the beach, deep in thought. If only I had never met him. Never fallen in love with him. And yet …

How could she wish that she had never met Gabriel? Never to have experienced such a magical couple of years being his wife? It had been a blessing she could never regret.

With weariness in every muscle, she lowered her aching body down on the sand.
 
She could still remember the first time they met. She had been with some friends at Palm Beach in Florida when suddenly high pitched squeals were heard and out of nowhere, the dorsal fins of dolphins apparently caught in a strong current could be seen heading towards the shallow waters. Within seconds, stunned beachgoers quickly raced into the surf to drag the mammals by their tails into deeper waters. Rose had rushed too, without a second thought, but she was too slight to make much of an impact. A man rushed over to help her and within a couple of minutes, they had succeeded. After all the dolphins had been rescued, the crowd of dolphin-savers drenched, yet exhilarated, broke into cheers.

Rose looked at the stranger who had rushed to her aid. He was a head taller than her with a clean short crew cut and chiseled jaw, not handsome yet there was something that drew her to him. His brown eyes twinkled at her in shared amusement and at that moment she knew that she had met the man she was destined to spend the rest of her life with.

It was obvious that he felt the same way too as he immediately asked her out and for the next couple of months they could not stay apart. Within four months he proposed and she had said yes.

As the larks singing high above her intruded into her reverie, she covered her face with her hands, groaning. She understood that for her there would never be another man like him. A wild little wind wailed eerily around the beach. And she wept, wept for what the future held in store for her.

You don’t get it, do you? Rose thought to herself. Sometimes in life, things go against your best-laid plans.

What malign twist of fate had made it happen? Her mind slammed into action, No! I will not allow it! I will control this. It will not control me! The mantra gritted through her head, repeating as she clenched her fists. It was vital, essential to keep control.

She couldn’t go there. She would not think about it.

From her pocket, her cell phone trilled impatiently. It dragged her back into the world of reality. Each movement as she reached into her pocket to retrieve the phone reinforced the agonized ache that she felt deep within herself. It was Gabriel! She muted it and dropped it unceremoniously on the damp sand.

Cutting him out of her life was going to be like having an amputation, because he had not only been her husband but her best friend, a soul mate whose tastes and personality ran hand in hand with her own. The thought of losing him filled her with despair but it had to be done. She would have to go home again, write a note telling him that she would be taking off and not to search for her. No big deal. No huge goodbye. They’d settle into their respective lives and he’d forget all about her. 
Except for her. She would be crushed. She could not imagine life without hearing Gabriel’s hearty laugh when he really enjoyed a joke or the way he tenderly held her hand in his whenever they took a stroll along this very beach nearly every night after dinner, wishing on the full moon as it shone a silvery path across the vast endless sea, making plans for their future together.

She took a steadying breath. No point treading that bitter path again. The path paved with broken dreams. She waited for the tsunami of tears to sweep in, waiting for regret, for desolation to arrive. But instead Rose just sat for a quiet moment, blinking as she realized that those feelings were absent. Acceptance. She had been through this before and she had prevailed. She would do so again. It was not in her nature to run away. She was born a fighter.

That was what her mother had told her, time and time again and had been ingrained into her memory. She was a premature baby, born at 27 weeks weighing less than two pounds and the doctors had told her parents that the chances of survival were weak at best. She however, had fought and against all odds had survived, to the amazement of the attending doctors.

She heard a sound behind her which made her turn. No, she thought faintly, through the numb miasma in her head. It couldn’t be! It just couldn’t! Not him, not here, not now. It was Gabriel. He had somehow found her.

He dropped onto the sand beside her. Her heart skipped a beat but she kept her eyes on his.“Why did you run away?” Gabriel asked her softly. 

She pulled her gaze away as her stricken, broken heart twisted within her. How can a heart break twice?

Rose gazed at him with her heart in her eyes as she said in a rush, “I received a message this morning from the oncologist, asking me to call him back urgently. Oh Gabriel, I know how much it hurt you the first time I was diagnosed with cancer. You were so brave and stood by me through it all, even though I know how much it hurt you, working tirelessly and taking up two jobs just to pay for my chemo and radiation treatments. That was why I thought I had to go away, I had to leave you.”

“You were willing to walk away without a backward glance, not even having the decency to tell me to my face that it was over?” he enquired. “Didn’t you think about how I would feel? Don’t you love me?”

“You know I love you,” Rose breathed, “so much, but I couldn’t bear the thought of you seeing me suffering and eventually losing the fight. I had to come here alone for a while to think. All I wanted was a little space. Now I am ready to face it again, face whatever may come.”

She was so close to tears that she had to bite the inside of her mouth until she tasted the metallic sourness of blood.

Gabriel lowered his head, resting his forehead against hers.
 
“Oh my darling,” Gabriel whispered. “The call from the doctors was to tell you that the tests were negative and that you have been given the all-clear.”

The world suddenly seemed to have gone still around them, and she looked into eyes which blazed with emotion she had longed to see.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said. “I should have told you, trusted the love and the bond we share. I promise to never forget that, ever.”

Gabriel pulled her into his arms tenderly.

They were back together where they belonged and she clung on to him. And between them flowed a message as old as time itself. The eternal message of love fulfilled, that no power could defeat.

Above them, the full moon casts its glow across the twilight sky.

Rose settled into his arms, relaxed and replete. Whatever the future held, they would be together, and that was all that mattered.