Epilogue #3
Kate tells him to sleep well in Mandarin – yes, I can speak a little bit, albeit terribly – and we are left alone at the dining table. I check my Casio wristwatch, the very same one I've had over thirty years.
“Shit, I didn’t realise how late it was,” I say, showing Kate the time. Ten past ten.
“Yeah, Jake was here for quite a while in the end,” Kate says, not seeming bothered, but still I didn’t give her a heads-up.
“I hope you don’t mind me inviting him over. Especially… today.”
Kate studies me with that blank expression that used to madden me when I first met her, but over the years I’ve come to understand it.
It’s her really thinking about what I just said and really thinking about what she wants to say in response.
“I don’t mind,” she says, eventually. “I was a little surprised. Being Danny’s anniversary. ”
“Yeah, I know, but Jake had a date cancel on him and I felt sorry for him and… have I ever told you how he reminds me of Danny?”
“No, I don’t think so, but I can see that.”
“You can?”
“Oh, yes. Some of their mannerisms are very similar. And the way he can be really sarcastic sometimes.”
“You haven’t seen the half of it. That was Jake on his best behaviour at dinner tonight.”
Kate laughs softly and slides her hand across the table and under mine. “I’m happy you like your boss.”
We sit in silence for a minute or two. The kitchen clock ticks and tocks. The dishwasher whirs in the background. And outside, we can hear the low hum of traffic a few streets away on the main road.
I wonder what Kate is thinking. Is she reminiscing about the day Danny died?
Or about the day we met, like I am? Is she finding it hard to believe how much hostility we felt towards each other for the first few weeks of our acquaintance?
Does she wish, like I sometimes do, that she hadn’t been so hard-headed?
That we’d jumped into bed, and into love, much, much quicker?
It’s impossible for me to remember Danny’s death and not think about how Kate and I met, how we riled each other up for a long time before we fell in love.
Sometimes I feel guilt for this, like I should be able to remember Danny and only Danny at this moment, but truth be told, the opposite is also true.
Whenever I think about falling in love with Kate – which is a lot, a lot – I also think about Danny.
So it’s fair to say, I think about Danny more than on this day. I think about Danny all the time.
“Shall we?” I eventually say when I feel my exhaustion creeping closer and closer.
“Let’s,” Kate says and she stands. When she holds out her hand for me, I take it and get up. We move to the space between the kitchen island and the dining table. It’s not a lot of room – it’s certainly not a dance floor – but it’s the heart of our home.
I call out, asking Alexa to play Forever Young by Alphaville and then I bring Kate close to my body. My right hand holds her left hand high and our other arms overlap as we grip our bodies together. Kate rests her head on my shoulder as we begin to sway.
Thirty-two years of dancing for, no, with Danny on this day, and many, many, many other days during that time.
I still wish I’d danced with him while he was alive.
It’s the biggest regret of my life. But I will continue to dance with him, with Kate, for the rest of my life.
That’s a promise I made to him that I haven’t broken and never will.
When the song ends, I’m relieved that it doesn’t shuffle to another song from that time.
I have enough memories keeping me busy right now.
I yawn as we stop moving and Kate nestles into my arms. Over the top of her head I see the two framed Lady Phantom editions, each one with AJ Ripley’s writing on the cover.
Mine is on top and above his signature reads “You deserve a happy ending too.”
I took that advice very literally thirty-two years ago and I remind myself of the fact every time I look at this cover.
Kate’s is beneath mine, reading “Keep demanding good things!”
I think it took Kate a moment or two longer to really believe what AJ was saying but in many ways, Kate has been demanding good things all her life. Better care for her patients and better awareness for those with AIDS and HIV. She just needed to demand them for herself too.
My eyes are pulled back to my wife when she leans back to look at me with a smile. I didn’t even realise I was yawning.
“You need to go to bed, old woman,” she says.
“So do you, old woman.”
“I’m still not sure how that happened, you know. This whole getting old part.”
“Beats me,” I say with a shrug.
“But I’m glad we’re doing it together,” Kate says. “I’m glad you’re my old woman.”
I laugh along with her melodic birdsong chuckles before dipping my mouth down to hers for a long, chaste kiss.
“Shall we do some more of that?”
She frowns and it’s the most beautiful frown in the whole world. “More what?”
“More growing old together?”
Her frown smooths into the biggest smile I know she has to offer. “Yes, let’s do that.”
“It would be my pleasure, Nightingale,” I say and then I kiss her again and again and again until our bodies start to dance once more.