Waking before the sun, my body told me to go back to sleep; my mind, however, was already a cyclone of thoughts. I could tell myself if I got out of bed now, I’d nap later, but even I wouldn’t believe that. Once I woke, I was awake.
Before lifting the covers, I turned to the sleeping woman at my side. Although she was now the one saying that sex could wait and that I needed to heal, we drifted off to sleep together with nothing separating us. Skin to skin, her soft curves molded against my toned muscles, her body radiated heat at my side, and her gentle mint-scented breath teased my skin.
Did all couples enjoy the familiarity that Lorna and I shared?
I wasn’t one to ask others questions about such matters. And yet I hoped they did. From the first time Lorna and I were intimate, we had a connection I’d never imagined. My comfort around her and hers around me seemed so natural and over the years has only intensified.
Placing my elbow on my pillow, I lifted my head to my hand and stared through the darkness of our bedroom at my wife. Even in sleep, she radiated not only her external beauty but her internal heart. Lorna loved without pause, cared for everyone, and gave of herself without question.
The thoughts and feelings circulating through me at the sight of her naked beside me ran the gamut from acceptable in polite company all the way to downright erotic. For only a moment, my thoughts drifted back in time.
Our first meeting.
The day I proposed.
The day we married.
For some reason, in my extremely limited knowledge of love and marriage—because I’d never thought it was a route I’d take—when those milestones occurred, when we held hands and were pronounced man and wife, I believed we’d reached the pinnacle of our journey.
We were two people with completely different backgrounds who found themselves in the same world. We’d successfully met, fallen in love, and made it official before God and man.
What more could there possibly be?
I teased a brunette curl, springing it between my thumb and forefinger before pushing another stray curl away from Lorna’s stunning face and peaceful expression. As my sight adjusted to the lack of light, I took in her features. It was amusing how I could see her every day and never tire of anything about her. Her long lashes fluttered, her pert nose pointed subtly upward, and her lips parted slightly with each breath.
My mind went to what the world thought of love. The older I became, the more my reading interests strayed away from fiction, focusing more in the reality of nonfiction. Biographies, as well as scientific, political, and mathematical research held my attention. Yet over the years, I’d picked up a few of Lorna’s romance novels. Many of them ended with the saying of vows and the committing of two souls to one another, as if that was the end.
Looking back with the hindsight of almost a decade, I realized how incredibly wrong I’d been and how misleadingly superficial those storylines were.
The day Lorna and I committed our lives to one another wasn’t the destination. It was only the first leg of our journey, one that I hoped would last for at least another fifty to sixty years. The love and pride I felt that day as she walked down the makeshift aisle holding tightly to Patrick’s arm was greater than any emotion I’d ever known. It had felt as though my chest would burst with adoration, and now my same chest ached with the hunger for more.
While the overabundance of emotion currently within me could easily be attributed to our recent traumas—the reality that I could have lost her in Montana or she could have lost me in Englewood—I believed the cause was more substantial and less superficial than that.
I knew from experience that the overwhelming love I was experiencing tonight paled in comparison to what I’d feel tomorrow or in another ten years. Perhaps it was what the officiant meant when he’d said to love and cherish from this day forward.
The love he described wasn’t static. It wasn’t an emotion that could be placed in a box to open now and then when it was convenient or practical. No, what he’d meant was that true love was dynamic—a living, breathing entity. It needed to be nurtured. And when it was, it satisfied while simultaneously created a hunger for more of that