He walks away, and I watch his shoulders move, and his long legs stride, and the way his hair curls against the skin of his neck. He is here. I am here. We are both real, and this is a beginning – not an end.
He pulls coins from his pocket and feeds them into a jukebox in the corner of the room. He presses buttons without even looking, already knowing them from memory.
He walks back to me, as I hear the familiar slow-clap at the beginning of the song. Our song. The one that has stayed with us both for so very long.
He takes my Dora backpack from my shoulder, smiling as he places it on a table. He gently strokes a loose lock of hair away from my face, and I lean into his touch. He wraps me in his arms, and I rest my head against his chest. Against the soft fabric of a T-shirt that bears our lost daughter’s name.
My hands slip around his waist, and I feel at peace as we begin to dance. I am safe. I am home.
I remember the kiss we shared just before everything changed, in the car on a snowy night. One of the many things I’ve blocked out over the years – a kiss so special, so perfect, that I can almost feel his lips on mine all over again. I smile, and my heart soars.
‘Baby, I love you …’ he sings along, breath warm against my skin, while we sway around an empty bar, in the city where our song’s singer was born and died.
We dance, and we are together, and time has folded in on itself: it no longer feels like we have even been apart, walking different paths, living separate lives. We are together again now, and that is all that matters.
We dance, and are together. We hold each other tight. We once more have hope. We once more have love.
We are both alive again.