The Gilding

Published at MudSpots.wordpress.com - Thursday, 8/04/11
MudSpots Topic Challenge: "Golden Rule"


Spectral-colored refractions highlighted chardonnay in the goblet as he swirled it in a shard of natural light. It captivated his gaze and drifting thoughts.

If Jack Kennedy had the job, we’d all be better off. Joey was in ‘Nam but had managed to get a telegram–his last words–to them that long-ago day, yellowed paper now pressed into their family Bible. His other brother, Jake, looked like a scarecrow in a tux.

Next to him at the linen-clothed table, she was afar in her mind. He could return, at-will. She was anchored there, untouchable, unreachable.

His life was her present, the reason they wed on her 21st birthday. She swore to drink him in, that day and henceforth. Their lives were as brimmed as her untouched water glass, never empty as her stare.

Rome deemed “L” its numeral for 50,” he thought, for love spanning decades, for her loss, first to Alzheimer’s and a subsequent stroke. It was for lucky, for there was no day, no moment or instance when he couldn’t feel lucky to hold the vision of her in their youth.

He moved the spoon to brush her lower lip with a small piece of anniversary-birthday cake, putting it into her mouth, wiping a crumb away at its corner. Tears in the corners of his eyes were emotional tattletales. He smiled at his lifelong love and whispered, “Thank you.”

The anniversary was golden by tradition, his life, gilded by her permeating presence within it.