Andrew looked out the bedroom window down on the garden below. The sinking sun cast shadows behind the trees and bushes. Andrew’s eyes followed the cobblestone path to a small table and chair. Years before, when he first met Millicent, a bench had been there. Andrew thought back to the day he and Millicent sat on that bench when he’d told her broken up with Flora. That was a lifetime ago. It had been forty-two years since Andrew told Millicent he’d move to Land’s End to be with her and help her run Wainwright Manor after her brother died. It had been the day Millicent almost died.
And now, after four decades of marriage, Andrew was still in love with Millicent as he watched her sitting in the chair, watching the sunset. Andrew couldn’t count the number of sunsets they had watched together from that garden. They’d had a good life at Wainwright Manor. They had children, and their children had children. There had been Christmases with the entire family together and long summer says playing on the beach. There had been spring nights, like this one, sitting in the garden and smelling the flowers in blow.
Andrew slowly went downstairs and out to the garden to see his wife.
“Millicent,” he said as he approached her but she didn’t look up. “Millicent?”
He stood in front of her and noticed her eyes were closed. Her chin as resting on her chest and her hand were folded on her lap. Andrew bent down on his knee and placed his hand on hers.
“Millicent,” he said again, knowing that she could no longer hear him. It seemed fitting the she died in the garden, her favorite place at Wainwright Manor.
Andrew rested his head on her lap and cried. He remembered the first time he saw her, that day in the library so many years ago. When he shook her hand that first time he never imaged he would have fallen in love with her, let alone spend the rest of his life with her. But, in the end, it had been a happy life and Andrew couldn’t have asked for more.
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