She sat under the listing shade tree with her back against its rough trunk and watched the clouds drift by ahead. They weren’t above her simply because she was as far up on the hill as she could go wearing a skirt and sandals, any further would require shorts, hiking sneakers, a hat and at lest two bottles of water. It was mid-afternoon and the breeze was gentle and consistent in its coolness.

Wispy clouds sailed across the heavier cumulus that cast shadows along the hillside and down to the dirt roads far away. She had been under this tree many times but never because she was lonely. She had been there because she wanted to be alone, but this was different. She missed him, his brown angular face, his toothy smile with perfectly straight teeth and his scratchy beard. She missed his weird habit of clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and the silly way he wore his baseball caps; barely on his head tilted to the left.

They had spent two years and four months in perfect harmony with their world. She had understood how two people could communicate without speaking, how life could give and take at the same time. They learnt about his illness a year after getting married in the little church her grandmother got married in. It was even smaller now that she was older, but it was beautiful. He had been brave. He believed that they were lucky, very lucky to have been able to find each other before he had to leave. “It’s like walking into a room just as the most interesting person is walking out and you never get to meet them. Isn’t it wonderful if you walk in and there they are, and you get to sit and talk, you get to share the most spiritual connection you’ve ever had?”

She had to agree that it made sense, so she held on to that thinking, and rode the train as far as she was allowed. Her loneliness took her on this climb. It was a feeling of getting as close as she could to where he may be flying free, sitting under the tree that shaded them the day he had proposed. She watched through squinted eyes as the clouds changed shapes. What would he say now to make her feel less alone? She wondered if she could ever sit there again and not feel lonely, the thought was quickly followed with the answer. Yes.

She touched her belly tenderly. Her heart hurt, but it was also full of his love and she would be fine. He would always be with her. Things come and they go, life rolls around and closes loose ends. She wouldn’t be lonely forever. A slight smile threatened her lips and a sigh escaped her. She was happy that he had entered that “room” and she had still been sitting there. She was forever changed because of that. Life was only going to get brighter and she had proof of that.