An Endless Series of Repetition and Novelty

“Amber?” Penelope said in a wavering voice, hand clutching Amber’s to her sunken chest.

“Yes?” Amber replied.

“What do you think happens when you die?” Penelope closed her eyes and listened to the gentle whir of the AC in her hospital room. It was turned down too low, presumably to keep the germs at bay, but it was unpleasant. The hospital administrators should really consider the paper-thin sheets and blankets in conjunction with the just above freezing temperatures. She could hear the low murmur of nurses in the hallway, coughing from down the hall, the soft sniffles Amber was trying to hold back.

“Why would you ask that? You’re going to be okay, Penny.” Penny opened her eyes again and sighed.

“No, I’m not. My darling, I wish we had more time together.” Amber started crying in earnest now, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs.

“You can’t leave me behind. You promised. Wherever you go, I go, remember?”

“I’m not leaving you behind, I’m just going ahead to get things ready for you.” Penny stopped to wheeze, and she felt her heart stutter in her chest. “What do you think happens when you die?” Amber shook her white head. Her hair had once been a vibrant red but over the course of their forty odd years together, it had all been bleached out by age.

“Why are you doing this to me? I love you. I love you. I love you.” Amber leaned in and kissed Penny’s face with every other word.

“I love you more.” Penny said and Amber chuckled wetly.

“I love you most. When you die, your soul goes out the window, up through the sky, and into space, hurtling at the speed of light. You feel like you’re on the best roller coaster of your life. Then when you get to space, a star is born, or a galaxy. Your soul would make a galaxy, you’ve lived so brilliantly. And then there’s an endless series of repetition and novelty, life beginning and ending and beginning again. Oh Penny, it’s going to be beautiful.” Amber’s voice broke.

“Nothing could be more beautiful than this life I’ve gotten to share with you.” Penny said. Amber pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.

“We got pretty lucky, huh?”

“Yes. We’ve had a good run.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” Amber whispered.

“Of course.”

“I don’t know how to let you go.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” Penny said. Amber nodded her head and wiped away a tear. “I don’t want you to. But you’ve got to live for the both of us, so I’m trying. I’ve never wanted and hated something so much in my life.”

“What are the both of us going to do?”

“Well, I’m about to die, I don’t know about you.” Amber squawked and gently smacked Penny’s shoulder.

“That’s not funny, Pen.”

“What? It’s the truth.”

“I wish it weren’t.”

“I know.” They both went quiet for a moment, and Penny turned her head to look out the window. The late afternoon autumnal sun slanted in through the open window, coloring everything burnt orange and gold. There was a flower arrangement on the windowsill containing marigolds, baby’s breath, and yellow roses, all Penny’s favorites. “When are Jessie and Logan supposed to get here?”

“Jessie’s on a plane right now with Ian and Logan’s about three hours away with the kids.” Amber said. Penny’s heart skipped another beat. It didn’t hurt, probably because of the cocktail of meds she was on, but it felt like it should. Dying should feel momentous, not like something you float into, a daydream made of cotton candy.

“I don’t think I’m going to make it that long,” Penny admitted. Amber sighed.

“No?”

“No.”

“They’re going to be heartbroken they didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“We’ve been saying goodbye for years now.” And they had, cancer first stole part of Penny’s lung and then it started in on her bones. What seemed like a persistent cough that could be attributed to allergies, bronchitis, a cold, literally anything but the truth ended up being the worst thing they could possibly imagine. How could errant cells possibly cause this much havoc, render so much pain on their unsuspecting family? It was incomprehensible.

“I suppose that’s true. Is there anything you want me to tell them?” Amber asked. Penny hesitated.

“Tell them…” My favorite memory was when we all went to the beach for a family day and Logan ended up getting a sunburn on his entire back and a bird flew away with Jessie’s ice cream and we all laughed so hard we cried and then we had sand in the car for months afterward, but the kids slept the entire way home and we played the radio and your hair streamed out the window and it looked like fire with the sunlight backlighting it. I loved those quiet Saturday mornings we had when the kids were gone and we got to sleep in. There was no sight more beautiful than you in the morning, sleep mussed and warm, smiling up at me from your silk pillow. I never realized how much it was possible to love someone else before we had them. I loved you, but when I first held Jessie in my arms and she stared up at me with those big brown eyes, a compartment opened in my heart, and it’s been overflowing since. I loved every moment of every day that I got to hold them tight, and I never stopped even when they got too big for my arms. They never outgrew my love. “Tell them I’ll see them again soon. I promise.”

“Pinky promise?” Amber asked.

“Pinky promise.”

“No crosses count.”

“Or else you’re down and out.” Penny and Amber linked pinkies and lightly squeezed them together before going back to holding hands. They sat there and stared at the TV, playing an infomercial about Tupperware. Who knew that interlocking tops made life so much easier? The people in the commercial beamed as they excitedly exclaimed over how much time they saved by not having to search for fitting tops. Maybe all Penny needed to be fixed was a matching set of plastic containers. Maybe they were the answer to everything.

“I feel like I have so much to say,” said Amber.

“I think we’ve said all that matters.”

“That’s true. You know what?” asked Penelope.

“What?”

“I’m so sorry for leaving you behind. I never wanted you to have to live by yourself. I thought we would have had more time.”

“Don’t you ever, ever apologize for that again.” Amber said fiercely. “I would do this a thousand, no, a million times over as long as I got to spend these years with you. Lord knows they haven’t been perfect, but they’ve been ours and that’s all that matters. I’m glad you’re going first. Now I can say that I was the one who took care of you to the very end. You were always better at organizing and making a house a home anyway. I’ll hold down the fort here.” Penny closed her eyes when her eyelids started to feel too heavy. The air was bearing down on her, making it difficult to inhale or think.

“Where do you think I’m going?” Penny asked. Amber crawled into bed and wrapped one pale, wrinkled hand around Penny’s shoulders, holding her bald head close to her heart. Penny listened closely to its beat, knowing her time was limited.

“Straight back to hell probably. Let me know how the weather is down there.” They both laughed and slowly came to a pause. “Seriously speaking, I would imagine heaven, but what do I know? I’ve been living in sin with a woman for the past forty years and even worse, we had the audacity to be happy and raise children together.” Penny snorted.

“How awful of us,” she said. “I just remembered something that I never told you.”

“What?” Amber asked.

“Do you know the first moment I realized I loved you?” Amber stayed silent but Penny knew she was listening intently. “We were at that party Kat Summers threw the first year we knew each other, and we went outside to talk. It was kind of cold because it was almost fall and you started shivering in your little miniskirt and tank top. We were talking about…I don’t remember what now, and the stars were sparkling overhead and then I gave you my fuzzy jacket. You looked up at me and you just smiled and I knew, I knew right then and there that you were it for me. All it took was a smile and I was gone.” Penny’s brain was feeling floatier, but she wasn’t willing to let go just yet. She wanted to hold on a little while longer. Years, if at all possible, but this afternoon would do in a pinch. Please, I’m not ready. Amber took a shuddering breath. “Babe, I’m getting kind of tired.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to stay awake. We’ll be alright.” How can you be when we’ve been each other’s worlds for so long? I don’t want it to hurt forever, but I’m not disillusioned enough to think that you’ll be fine tomorrow. Or the day after that, or the day after that. But eventually, someday in the future, I know that my death won’t be a gaping hole in the psyche of everyone who loved me.

“I know. That doesn’t make it easier.”

“No, but it’s true.”

“I’m so scared,” Penny gasped. She felt a kiss brush the crown of her head.

“So am I, but I know that this isn’t the end for us. Just take a deep breath, you can let go.” Penny opened her eyes one more time, looking up at Amber’s face, cataloging every feature, from her bright blue eyes to the wrinkles in the corners of her mouth from all of the smiles and laughter they’d had over the years, the bow of her top lip that Penny was intimately familiar with from decades of brief pecks and lingering kisses, the slight upturn of her elven nose, every part that made the whole of the most amazing woman she had ever known and would now have to leave behind, even if just for a short time. “I love you.” Penny took a few more breaths and looked over at the arrangement of flowers again. The last of the day’s sunlight lit up the marigolds a bright yellow before fading slowly. I love you most.