To you, with Love - Part 4: Finale

I would love to be that scent that lingers in your life. Forever.

Waiting for our ‘happily ever after’…


Love always,
Christine.

******
He read that again. And then he folded the letter. He placed it back into the envelope. And back into the box. The box that held all the letters Christine had ever sent him. She indeed had lingered on in his life. Just like the scent of the rose. And she still did – even if the rose enclosed had long reduced to mere vestiges of its former self; even if she herself did no longer exist.

He remembered, how one day, Christine had asked what he did with the letters she sent him. He had said that he didn’t know where it was; maybe he threw them away or must have left them somewhere. The anger and irritation on her face had amused him. She had sulked all day – I have still saved all of yours, Paul. And look at you! Don’t know where it is, it seems! Over the years, she never asked about it again. But little did she know that he had saved them. Every single one of them.


On lonely days like this, Paul opens his little box and takes out random letters of Christine. Each letter transports him thirty years into the past – when he had decided to marry a simple woman from the country side. When they had discovered each other through letters. When they had discovered love after marriage. She had stood by him through all the rough times; through all the good times. They had made a wonderful family. They always said that they would enjoy their romance once again, when the children grew up and moved on with their lives. The children did grow up and move on – but she could not stay on. He was left alone.


The letters – with its yellowed pages, faded ink and her lovely handwriting – were the only parts of her spirit that remained. And that is why he read it. Again and again.


He placed the box into his bedside drawer, put on his hat and decided to go for a walk. To the lake at the country side.


                                                              THE END