My name is Cecilia Parks. From the outside I look to be about seventy eight, seventy seven. Inside I feel like a fifty year old pounding on the walls of my insides to let me out. Seventy eight years have passed and I haven’t accomplished half the things I thought I would. A widow at forty eight, my life stopped along with my husband’s heart. We planned trips to Europe, a vast ranch home in the country and over nights spent with future grandchildren. But those plans that had been laid out on the table for us to smile with glee at were put back into permanent storage. My daughter had lunch with me one day a few years after his death; she told me that it was okay for me to move on, to re marry. I thought it was interesting she was giving me permission to start living life. I declined, I told her the truth. The truth was that I would never love anyone as much as I loved her father, and a love any less than that isn't worth it at all.
As I lay here in the king bed that was meant for two, I feel the chilled sheets pressed against my cheek. I run my wrinkled hands over the side next to me where he would've laid this very night. I tuck a wisp of crisp white hair behind my ear and roll of my back. I move my eyes to where his dresser would have been. After five years of never moving as much as dirty tissue in his waste basket I decided it was time to part with his things. The shirts, the ties, the cuff links, the dress pants were all thrown into boxes and given to the second hand shop in the city. A tear drips down my cheek and hits the bed. It doesn't make a sound, but in my mind it’s like a bolder falling in a grassy meadow. I close my eyes. And when I wake, he’s next to me. We are young again. He brushes a tear falling from my eye. A warm smile comes across his face.

“Where do you want to go?,” He asks.
“Away.”

He nods. “Let’s go.” He slides his hand over and intertwines his fingers with mine. He closes his eyes. A faint smile still brushed against his lips. I close my eyes. And when I awake, we are away, and away.