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Henry and Jim
    By J.M. Snyder

    His folded hands are pale and fragile in the
early morning light, the faint veins beneath translucent skin like
faded ink on forgotten love letters written long ago. His fingers
lace through mine; his body curves along my back, still asleep
despite the sun that spills between the shades. I lie awake for
long minutes, clasped tight against him, unable or unwilling to
move and bring the day crashing in. Only in sleep am I sure that he
fully remembers me. When he wakes, the sun will burn that memory
away and I’ll have to watch him struggle to recall my name. After a
moment or two he’ll get it without my prompting but one day I know
it will be gone, lost like the dozen other little things he no
longer remembers, and no matter how long I stare into his weathered
blue eyes, he won’t be able to get it back.
    Cradled in his arms, I squeeze his hands in
my arthritic fists and pray this isn’t that day.
    After some time he stirs, his even breath
breaking with a shuddery sigh that tells me he’s up. There’s a
scary moment when he freezes against me, unsure of where he is or
who I am. I hold my breath and wait for the moment it all falls
into place. His thumb smoothes along my wrist, and an eternity
passes before he kisses behind my ear, my name a whisper on his
lips. “Henry.”
    I sigh, relieved. Today he still remembers,
and that gives me the strength to get out of bed. “Morning, Jim.” I
stretch like an old cat, first one arm then the other, feeling the
blush of energy as my blood stirs and familiar aches settle into
place. Over my shoulder I see Jim watching, a half smile on his
face that tells me he still likes what he sees. As I reach for my
robe, I ask him, “How about some eggs this morning? That sound
good?”
    “You know how I like them,” he says, voice
still graveled from sleep. His reply wearies me—I don’t know if
he’s forgotten how he prefers his eggs or if he simply trusts me to
get them right. I want to believe in his trust, so I don’t push it.
After fifty years of living with Jim, of loving him, I choose my
battles carefully, and this isn’t one either of us would win.
    Leaning across the bed, I plant a quick kiss
on the corner of his mouth. “Be down in ten minutes,” I murmur.
    His gnarled fingers catch the knot in the
belt of my robe and keep me close. My lower back groans in protest,
but I brush the wisps of white hair from his forehead and smile
through the discomfort as he tells me, “I have to shower.”
    “Jim,” I sigh. When I close my eyes he’s
eighteen again, the fingers at my waist long and graceful and firm,
his gaunt cheeks smooth and unwrinkled, his lips a wet smile below
dark eyes and darker hair. It pains me to have to remind him, “We
showered last night.”
    He runs a hand through his thinning hair,
then laughs. “Ten minutes then,” he says with a playful poke at my
stomach. I catch his hand in mine and lean against it heavily to
help myself up.
    * * * *
    We met in the late spring, 1956, the year I
graduated from State. It seems so long ago now—it’s hard to imagine
we were ever anything but the old men we’ve become. My youngest
sister Betty had a boy she wanted me to meet, someone I thought she
was courting at the time, and she arranged an afternoon date. I
thought she wanted my approval before she married the guy; that’s
the way things were done back in the day.
    But when I drove up to Jim’s parent’s house
and saw those long legs unfold as he pushed himself up off the
front steps of the porch, I thought I’d spend the rest of my life
aching for him. I could just imagine the jealousy that would eat me
alive, knowing my sister slept in those gangly arms every night;
family gatherings would become unbearable as I watched the two of
them kiss and canoodle together. By the time he reached my car, I
had decided to tell Betty she had to find someone else. That nice
Italian kid on the corner perhaps, or the McKeever’s son