Til Death Do Us Part?

Spent, but clean and sated for now, Ronny toweled briefly and crawled in between the soft flannel sheets of the bed. She slept dreamlessly this time and awoke from her slumber rested as she couldn't remember feeling in a long time. She wasn't even concerned about the way reality and her fantasies kept intermingling. She did not feel she was losing her mind. She was redefining reality into a life in which she could continue... with Stephan as oft as possible...and without when with others who did not know her as he did.

Lying there reviewing all that she'd experienced throughout this unique overnight stay in Cabin 12 of the Eagle Glen Motor Inn, Veronica Marie Hairston Lebron realized that it was Christmas day! She was immediately assaulted by mixed reactions to this revelation, but struggling to choose which of the many voices inside her head she would heed, she sorted thru the memories of many Christmas mornings before. Presents under the tree, giggles and laughter and ooohing and aaahing as paper and ribbon were stripped away, Mother and Father, Irene and, eventually Greg and even Penelope... her eyes moistened as she recalled Penny's squeal of delight at finding a cute, fuzzy puppy squirming to extricate itself from a Christmas stocking just last year.

All those Christmases had combined to create and mold the love that lived within her she knew. But Stephan was the one for whom that heart had been created. He was the one who was to share all it had to offer for eternity! She smiled as she realized she'd spent the most important parts of Christmas already with Stephan. He'd been alive, in her arms and in her heart throughout Christmas Eve and all of Christmas morning.

Ronny drew herself up upon the bed, shoving the pillows into a wall behind her against the iron of the bars at the head of the bed. She was content now that she had come. It had been the right thing to do and a tradition she would continue. As if in confirmation of the basic rightness of her conclusions, not that Ronny needed any reassurance at this point, she spotted something upon the small wobbly nightstand beside the head of the bed. There, beside the clock radio she'd set there the day before and the hairbrush she'd placed there after her first shower last evening, was a small round band, yellow gold in color, glinting in the bit of sunlight shining in from the skylight high above the bed.

Stunned with the discovery, Ronny reached slowly and took up the shiny thing. The flannel top sheet fell away from her nakedness as she retrieved the object and examined it. Inside, if she held it within the beams of nature's light falling there upon the stand, she could just read the tiny letters "All my heart for all my days". Stephan had whispered those words to her even as he'd placed it upon her finger for the first time those few years ago. As she settled back against the downy cushions behind her, Ronny closed her moistening eyes and slid the ring back to its rightful place.

"Thank you Stephan." she whispered as her tears stole from beneath her lids and began their voyage lovingly over cheek and chin. And, though no one else might have even heard it had they been there, Ronny knew the voice that spoke to her in reply, "Merry Christmas, my Rose, merry Christmas."