Max and Rosie

I don't believe she said that.

After a few seconds, he heard Robin say, "He's a very special person. It's remarkable what a wonderful man he is and how devoted he has been to your mom."

"This has been such an ordeal for him," Leah said. "I think he's going to be completely lost when she dies."

"He'll be fine. It will be hard at first, but he's a strong man. He'll probably go back to teaching or work on his novel."

"Want to hear something weird?" Leah asked, then chuckled. "I had the thought that if you two got married, I'd be your daughter-in-law and you'd be my stepmother."

"That would be weird, but what makes you think he'd want to marry me?"

"It was just a weird thought." Leah laughed. "You and I are the same age."

"I know. It's funny, I think I would miss him. It might be hard for me, too."

When Max heard that, he suddenly thought that she might have feelings for him that he was not aware of. It thrilled him. It also frightened him.

* * * *

Rosie died on a Sunday morning a month later. It had been clear the end was near. Max had sat with her the last few nights and was with her all Saturday night, aware that she was hardly breathing. Robin administered morphine to eliminate the pain and relax her. Max held her hand and kissed her forehead. Robin let them be alone, only coming in from time to time to see how he was.

Hospice took care of everything and when she was taken from the house, Max stood at the door and watched them drive away. He was sobbing. Robin and Leah stood in back of him.

Friends called. Max and Rosie were not religious and he did not sit Shiva, as was the Jewish custom, but people stopped by and brought food. They all shared memories of Rosie and there was a lot of laughter as people remembered how funny she was and how she remembered their birthdays and always called, how she helped on some of the plays that Leah was in when she was in school. They remembered her carrot cake and stuffed mushrooms.

Robin had already started packing and Max's awareness that she would be leaving brought even more pangs of sadness. He would look out at the garden and the drooping sunflowers that bordered it. The hospital bed in his room was now gone. Hospice had it removed two days after Rosie died. When he sat on the edge of his bed, he could hear Robin in her room humming while she worked. He sighed and walked down to her room to see if she wanted any help, though he knew that was silly. How could he help?

When he stood in the doorway, he noticed she was wearing the same black yoga pants she'd worn the day she arrived over a year ago and liked how they strained at her ass. There were still some clothes in the closet. The lemon-colored bureau had the drawers open and he could see they still had her T-shirts and underwear in them. He noticed the small wooden box where she kept her bracelets had not been touched. She had brought in the boxes from the garage and one of them was filled with her art supplies, but the other was empty and her brushes were still in the large mason jar where she kept them. Several canvases she had painted were still on the walls of her room, but two were leaning against the wall.

Max said, "I'll be right back."

A few minutes later, he brought her the painting she had hung in the kitchen. It was a painting of the garden.

"Don't forget this one," he said.

"That's for you. I want you to keep it."

"Really? Thank you. I love this painting. I like the way you included the peach trees in the background."

While Robin gathered her belongings, Max looked around the room that had once been Leah's and admired the way Robin had arranged things. He saw photographs of Robin's parents on the wall near her bed and there was one when she was a little girl feeding the chickens. He remembered how he liked looking at it the few times he visited her room. He noticed that Robin was making small piles on the floor and on the bureau, but she was moving slowly and didn't seem her usual efficient self. She seemed distracted, confused.

"I hate packing," she said and stood in the middle of the room holding the green tank top he liked.

Max was quiet and noticed she seemed upset and kept biting her lower lip and taking deep breaths. He didn't say anything and was surprised when she sat down on her bed and looked down at her lap and started to cry. She looked up at him in the doorway.

"Max. I don't want to leave."

When he saw the tears, he was bewildered but also unable to move.

Suddenly, she came to him and put her arms around him. He immediately held her and felt the strength of her arms and her breasts against his chest and before he knew it, they were kissing. It was all so sudden, but Max's sadness suddenly became passion and all that he had been resisting swelled and became his embrace. His lips and the way he held her close to him said more than he could have ever expressed in words.

They pulled their mouths apart with a gasp for air. They gazed into each other's eyes, realizing they had crossed a threshold.

"I don't want to go," she said through trembling lips.

"I want you to stay. Please stay."

They kissed again, harder, more passionately and somehow stumbled to the bed and fell onto it. Their kissing became wilder as if unleashing unspoken feelings that had been building for months but could not be released while Rosie was still alive. Max lay between Robin's legs that were wrapped around him, pulling him against her, and he wanted her like he had never wanted anything more. The last few years of Rosie's fading from his life and his growing desire for Robin had taken all of his strength to resist but now poured out of him in a torrent of passion.

When he rolled off her and pulled off his jeans and gray sweatshirt, Robin squirmed out of her yoga pants. She smiled up at Max while he reached for her white panties, pulled them down her legs then from her bare feet and tossed them over his shoulder. Realizing it had been at least two years since Robin had made love, he fell back into her arms and gently entered her, feeling her tightness but soon was thrusting deep into her warm wetness and loving the soft whimpering sounds she made as they made love for the first time. They kissed and he reveled in the feeling of their tongues and their bodies moving slowly at first then faster and harder until he felt her tensing, trembling and screaming, "Oh my God. Oh yes. Oh my God...oh, I love you. I love you. I love you."

Her words filled Max with the urge to thrust harder and harder. With her legs wrapped around him, her hands on his ass pulled him deeper into her and brought him to an overwhelming orgasm that erupted in gushes that filled her and dripped onto her thighs. He writhed before collapsing on her, unable to budge as they both wallowed in the warm afterglow.

After a few moments, Max lifted his head and gazed into Robin's smiling eyes. No words were needed. He kissed her, then slid onto his back, gathered her into his arms and loved the smell of her hair as she laid her head on his shoulder.

"I'm happy," she said softly.

"I am, too."

"What will Leah think?" Max asked.

"I'm not sure, but I think she will get used to it. She and I are the same age. It might be a little weird, but I think she already suspects there was something going on between us."

Later that day, Robin put her clothes back in the closet and straightened up her room. Max hung the painting she had given him back in the kitchen. They couldn't keep their hands off each other and Max felt he had been reborn. Robin made a delicious chicken dinner and a Greek salad with feta and olives. Later that night after slow dancing in the living room to an old Tony Bennett record, Robin and Max made love again in the bed he had once shared with Rosie and they fell asleep in each other's arms.

Though it felt strange not having Rosie in the house and their routine changed dramatically, a month later, they had the urn with her ashes. Max placed it on the mantel of the fireplace in the living room. He knew what he wanted to do with her ashes but kept it a secret until April twelfth the following year, on what would have been their thirty-ninth anniversary. He called Leah to meet him at the pond where Rosie and he had always fed the ducks. He remembered how much she loved that spot. He asked Robin to drive his car so that he could hold the small but heavy pewter urn on his lap. With Leah on one side of Max and Robin on the other, they stood on the shore of the pond. After glancing at the ducks, Max opened the urn, reached in and lifted a handful of Rosie's gray ashes. He closed his eyes, saw a kaleidoscope of memories flash, and thought how her vibrant life had come to this...dust in the palm of his hand. Leah and Robin reached in and held her ashes in the palms of their hands. Both Leah and Robin looked at Max, and then silently, each with their own thoughts of farewell, threw Rosie's ashes onto the dark water.