Tanabata -- Part 3

After that, Dee refused to leave my side, even at night. I protested but she said if I didn’t let her stay with me, she would set up a tent outside my door. Said she didn’t want to take the chance of forgetting me. I sighed and resigned myself to sleeping on the couch for a few days.

The days turned into weeks. Every day she woke me up way too early with a new schedule she had devised the previous night. We spent days going from hospital to hospital. At first, she stopped at anyone she could find, but soon began to create a sort of triage system. Children were top priority and categorized by the severity of their sickness or injury.

More than once we found ourselves running from security in our attempt to reach certain patients. However, the chase would end as soon as I laid hands upon someone. No one tried to stop us after that. We may as well have been invisible.

She even went so far as to buy a high-end radio and try to listen in on emergency situations. It scared her to think what would happen if we couldn’t get to someone in time. I couldn’t heal death.

Eventually, the circles under her eyes contradicted her constant vivacity to the point that I became concerned she was losing herself in the task.

“What about your own life? Don’t you have anything you need to attend to?”

She only smiled, “Nothing more important than this!”

I didn’t have the heart to refuse her. The way she flittered from one task to the next while, at the same time, planning multiple other ideas filled me with a vigor I’d not felt in years. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy helping people. I knew that the Power was my God-given purpose. Her method of attacking life head-on reminded me of what I’d been missing.

I thought of Mr. Reynolds and remembered a verse that my mother had taught me so many years ago. I could only recall a few words of it. After all this time, it shocked me how reliant I had become on the internet. In a few clicks, I’d found the verse.

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

I went to bed that night praying, really praying for the first time in years.

Oh God, please help her remember! I don’t want to lose her.

I woke up a while later to movement in the living room. I hadn’t slept for more than a couple hours. Dee was sitting at my computer desk, not saying a word. Still sleepy, I got off the couch and went to see what she was doing.

As I approached, I saw what she was reading. In dismay, I saw I hadn’t turned off my computer or exited my browser. The words of 1 Corinthians still blazed on the screen.

“Dee! Sorry!” I stumbled in my words, “I should have…”

She stood so quickly I thought she was going to bolt, but she rushed me instead and before I knew it, her lips were on mine.

I lost track of thought and time. The years burdening my shoulders were forgotten while I lived only for that specific moment. Her lips touched mine again and again, more vigorously before she pulled away to breathe. Our foreheads touching, exasperated. Wordlessly, she pulled me away.

From then on, I no longer slept on the couch.

* * *

We continued with our work. Dee never lost her drive, but she wasn’t filled with the frantic fervor that possessed her before. She no longer rushed from task to task, but approached everything with a calm intensity. This only added to her beauty. She began to catalog our encounters with people. She was careful not to record too much detail. Merely names and dates or places. She found if she wrote anything about a specific individual’s malady, the entire name along with its info vanished the next day.

Her experiments with video proved far less successful. At the very least, the data or film we used was erased or simply vanished afterwards. Sometimes, the entire phone or camera disappeared. Audio was the same. We even tried to keep a list of how the Power rippled outward to the surrounding environment. However, it too, suffered similar consequences. In the end, it was only our own minds that kept an accurate accounting of it all.

We developed a routine, and for many months we were truly happy. Sometimes, we would abandon our schedule and walk the city. Dee liked to see where my senses took us. Initially, she said she wanted to record if there was a pattern to where the Power led me. Eventually, though, she would forget her notebook at home. I loved our conversations on the streets.

“I still feel like we’re missing something, or at least I am. It seems a shame for so many people to forget everything they went through. Why would God want them to forget?” Dee had just gone over her list of the people healed before we stepped out the door. She wanted to remember every one of them. She said it was also a good way for her to confirm the wholeness of her own memory.

“I’ve thought of that too, Dee. I think it has to do with faith.” She looked up, ready to question me but I continued before she could begin. “Miracles build faith, but they do not sustain it. Any faith that requires constant miracles to support it is like helping a butterfly out of a cocoon–it may seem helpful at first, but the butterfly never has the strength to fly afterwards.”

“But you are not constantly helping them. Just the once.”

The city was fairly quiet that day, giving us ample time to banter. My senses took us down a lesser used road.

“Hmm, what do you think would happen if everyone had proof that God had healed them? Even worse, believed that I had healed them? I don’t think everyone would make the distinction. It would be sheer chaos. Besides, I don’t think God wants proof that He exists floating around in this world.”

“Why’s that? That would make things a lot easier I think.”

Around the corner, a screech of a cat and a toppling of a garbage can attracted my attention.

“Exactly. He would be influencing us to believe a certain way, effectively taking away a part of our free will. I think God wants us to know Him, but He wants us to make the choice to do so on our own, not because he forced us.” I rounded the corner, and followed my senses to the side of a city trash bin. I knew what I’d find there, but she didn’t.

“What about the Bible, didn’t Christ supposedly perform miracles?”

“Sure, and look how that turned out. They wanted to make Him king, and force Him to act the way they thought a king should be. Another good reason for the people here to forget about me. Besides, He was there for a different purpose.” I lifted the cardboard box off the ground revealing a bloody mess below. The dog was in bad shape. The life of a stray had taken more than its toll from this one.

Dee covered her face with her hands. Her muffled sound of surprise made me regret not warning her before I’d lifted the box. Reaching down to stroke the creature’s matted and crusty fur, I let a trickle of healing flow.

Dee crossed her arms and cleared her throat. “But doesn’t hardship make us stronger? Shouldn’t we remember the pain we’ve gone through?”

The dog jerked to a stand. Letting out a yelp of confusion, the animal nipped at my hand then dashed off, oblivious to its previous injuries.

Watching the animal race away, I shook my head. “I’m not so certain.”

* * *

In early Autumn, I sensed the change in Dee. It came slowly at first, then blossomed within her like a morbid flower. I kept it from her for a while.

One day, we were sitting on the porch enjoying the fall colors. She was in my lap with my arms around her. It was then that I tried to tell her, but she interrupted me.

“I’m not a butterfly, you know.”

“What’s that?” My voice caught in my throat.

“We’re not the same, I’m stronger than a butterfly. Even if you help me out of my cocoon, I may still be able to fly–I will still remember you.”

She had known, of course.

I wanted to believe her. So far, she had managed to keep the memory of me in her mind when I touched those around us. Yet, would she be able to do the same if the Power touched her directly? I held her closer in response.

A few days later, I found her collapsed in the garden.

I resigned myself to healing her. I would rather have her alive and forget me than die and never see her again in this life.

Yet, when I came to her, she roused and saw the iron in my eyes.

“No silly, not yet. I still have a little more time.” I helped her up and she kissed me, draining my resolve away.

She rallied for a few more days and we spent them together doing exactly as we had done the entire summer. She would have it no other way.

When she fell again, we both knew the time had come. I carried her to our bed, ready to release my gift, my burden, into her ailing body. Her knowing smile, the one I had always loved, on her sweet, heart-shaped face.

She grasped both my hands in her own. “My love, it’s time for truth now.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Dee!”

“I know.” She squeezed my hand in emphasis. “But neither have you told me the whole truth now, have you?” She still had that smile. She wasn’t angry. Her voice exuded a serenity that anchored me in the moment. Slowly, I nodded only once before she continued.

“Your parents…after you healed them, they forgot you, didn’t they?”

My vision began to blur from the tears. I nodded again. “They thought—they thought I was the neighbor’s boy, but their whole family had perished the summer before.”

“And it really was the plague, wasn’t it? Tell me, how long were you alone?”

She deserved the truth. She deserved so much more than the truth.

“My…my parents died almost 700 years ago.”

She found the strength to raise her hand to my face. I saw her eyes alight upon her mother’s ring. She paused there and my heart skipped. I knew the look—I’d seen it before only a handful of times. Seemingly lost in thought, I imagined her mind racing down long forgotten corridors, kicking open doors to sealed memory. I dared not interrupt, I barely had the courage to pray.

Her eyes widened as her gaze jerked back to mine, in understanding at last. Slipping her ring off and placing it in my palm, she cupped her hands around mine.

“When did you give me this ring, my love?” The first of many tears slipped down the side of her face.

My soul cheered for the victory she had just achieved! I tried to give her my best smile, “Oh Dee, we were married 1367 in Paris on July 7th. It was beautiful.” I wiped the side of her face with my hand.

“I remember now…I remember all of it! But…how…how have we survived?”

I let out the breath I was holding, “You always loved the details, Dee…Aging…is a sickness too, you know, and…and…”

“…you can heal anything.” She tried to laugh. “But why do I keep getting ill?”

My heart ached at her question. “I don’t know, Dee. I’ve spent so long trying to reason it out. You’re the only one who keeps getting sick, regardless of how many times you are healed. I’ve prayed, Dee, prayed so much that God is nearly the only one I talk to anymore.” My helplessness within made it hard to look her in the eyes but her blameless smile kept my attention in place.

“I may keep getting sick, love, but I am also the only one that ever remembers; even if it is only for a few moments.” She waited for my affirmation before continuing. “What did you ask the Japanese lady when I met you this time around?”

“Dee, please…”

“The truth my love.”

I took a deep breath. “There’s too much pain! Everyone thinks that hardship makes you stronger. Dee, I’ve watched you nearly die a thousand times…I don’t feel strong anymore. I asked the lady if she was stronger now…I need to know how to keep going!”

Hope welled within me. “You remembered more than you ever have before, Dee! We’re so close! Once I can heal you without you forgetting, we’ll be together forever!

“There, you see? Your love has given you your strength. Now, don’t you forget it! I know you’ll come for me, my love…my love…”

I could wait no longer. The Power had risen within me, raging for release. And I let it free.

* * *

A week later, Dee’s scent led me to the library again. She wasn’t sick, not yet, but I had followed her long enough to know her smell anywhere. I opened the door, holding it open for the family behind me, then followed in after. I wasn’t sure how much longer the Power would allow Dee to keep her job here at the library or be whisked away to some other new history. I was thankful for it though, I liked this place.

If I waited long enough, fate was bound to provide someone in need of the Power. All I had to do was make sure Dee was nearby when it occurred. Dee remembered a bit more every time. Those last few precious minutes had proven that it was possible and renewed my hope that the cycle could be broken. There were no seriously ailing individuals in the library that day. But that was ok, I wanted to try something else.

I found her at the end of the current again. She waved at me over the heads of the children. I motioned that I would wait till she was done reading. Afterwards, she came to me smiling.

“Hey! It’s so good to see you again! I am so terribly sorry for the inconvenience I caused you the other day.”

I laughed, “Well, it isn’t everyday a beautiful woman collapses in front of my house. I trust you are feeling better?”

“Very much so, thanks to you, the doctors say it’s just exhaustion. Too much work, I suppose. I still can’t remember why I was even out that way, though.”

I nodded and readied myself. Hopefully, I still had the dialect right. “I see, well, you do seem the type to focus on your work. Anyway, I just wanted to drop by. I found this in the street in front of my house and thought it might be yours.”

I held out the sapphire ring.

Recognition dawned in her eyes, then softened in concentration, as if she were chasing a dream that fled come morning.

“I...what is this?” She paused while gently plucking the ring from my palm then continued, “This...I know this. So beautiful–so old…”

Her eyes found mine again, widening in astonishment as she realized what she had just done.

She had spoken in perfect French.

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Tanabata -- A Love Story -- PART 3

Tanabata -- Part 3

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