I can’t breathe.  It feels worse today.  I must’ve been asleep for hours.  The sun’s going down over the Fitzpatrick’s roof, it must be past 4.  Where’s Ma?  The kitchen’s so quiet.  She must not be back yet.  Mother in heaven, why won’t this coughing leave me?  I used to crave a little solitude; time away from Ma’s puttering attentions.  Now I just feel so alone.  If I can reach the lamp, maybe the shadows won’t unnerve me so.

Greta my love, why can I no longer see your face when I close my eyes?  Have you left me?

I can remember her walking down the lane, her back to me, in the early morning softness.  Such a lovely straight, tall posture; so like a beautiful flowering tree she is.  Her dark hair curling there at the end like a gentle breeze upon her shoulders as she takes to the fence, her boots steady on its boards, accommodating her and lifting her over chivalrously.  Never one to go the easy way, this I knew from our first days together.  She’s up and over in an instant but I turn away from her searching for a gate to pass through.  But why would I ever take my eyes off her, why ever forego the opportunity to see her, look at her?  When I see her again she’s already meters away, mud collecting on her petticoats as she crosses the field off to who knows where.  I can get her attention though and I start singing her song.  Then I could still raise my voice above a whisper.  A smile must’ve crossed my face as I see her stop mid-stride playing at surprise her hand to her chest as she turns to me.  I see the sweet joy in her expression even before I see her features with waves of sunlight gathering to her beauty.  But then the face is black and the scene is gone from my mind. 

I’ve got to get out of this tiny bed.  There’s barely any room here to stretch out, the way Ma has boxed me in since I fell Michaelmas night.  The light’s almost gone now and it’ll be cold I can tell.  Lord, I’ve been lying here far too long.  Sometimes, I try to see how long I can just lie without moving, what it must be like!  I’m not afraid of dying.  I trust the Lord has a plan for me and may be my time will come early.  I am only afraid of not seeing Greta again.  That she will leave and I will never be able to tell her what she means to me.  Do you think you can feel death when it comes into the room? Ma told me Granny’s death was like that; that a cold came over the fire and the room seemed to darken as if a cloud had past before the sun and suddenly she was gone.  I will not give in should death come for me; I will fight.  I know now that Greta’s in the world and my heart beats with hers.  How could it stop if she lives?    

It is time to get out of this bed.  I am determined that with whatever strength I have I will go and see her.  Wrap this blanket around me and out into the fresh air.  What a thing to walk out in the world again.