The most beautiful thought is that they have each other. Even before they knew what those words meant. That when they thought of one the other was doing the same. Until they weren’t. She sought solace in the thought that he was still there. That he was out there, somewhere, doing the same as she was. Like how late at night she would lay on her back in her bed and stretch her arms up towards the heavens, and there she felt she could feel his hands in hers. Their fingers interlocked with only the world between them. And then the dove came and took the hands away. A tease. And she felt deep sadness, but she knew. One day the dove would take her hands to his. 

              He lived in the city with her. She had always wished to live  in the country, but his health called for doctors and doctors are in the city. So they lived in the city. Together. Just the two of them. They weren’t lonely, for they had each other. And maybe it was naive of them to believe a love this true and real could exist, but that’s how they were raised. To believe in the impossible. To the point where every cell and fiber of their beings believed it to be true. On the other side of him, there exists and always has existed, her. 

          Every day they would feed the doves together. Fingers interlocked, they would travel down the sun-warmed cobblestone roads. In his other hand, a cane, in hers, a worn brown paper bag filled with bread crumbs. Traveling slowly down the sidewalks, they made their way to the bench. The bench was nestled into a patch of pines, the green paint faded and chipped. Every day the elderly couple would sit on the bench together, tossing breadcrumbs to the doves on the street. Until he couldn’t. His legs grew weaker until he could no longer walk. He stayed in bed constantly, his frail wife caring for him. They would sit on his bed tossing breadcrumbs out his window together, fingers interlocked. Until he didn’t. She sat alone on his bed, her fingers cradling his wedding ring, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t leave the house for months. Then a dove appeared on her windowsill. A single dove. She opened the window and sat with the dove. She gave it bread crumbs. The dove gave her hope. 

        It was winter now. She had begun to have respiratory issues. She had trouble breathing. She was blind in one eye. It was freezing outside and her fragile bones became stiff in the frosty weather. She shuffled along the snow covered streets in her worn leather shoes, pressing her way through the piles of frozen flakes. She came to the bench. You could barely tell it had ever been green. The paint had completely chipped off, leaving it a dull rusty brown. The pines around the bench had grown considerably, their boughs weighed down by dusty snow. She sat down on the bench and pulled the bag of bread crumbs from her thin coat. She tossed some on the ground and waited. No dove came. Until it did. The dove. Her dove. It came. 

        The most beautiful thought is that they have each other. Even before they knew what those words meant. That when they thought of one the other was doing the same. Until they weren’t. She sought solace in the thought that he was still there. That he was out there, somewhere, doing the same as she was. Like how late at night she would lay on her back in her bed and stretch her arms up towards the heavens, and there she felt she could feel his hands in hers. Their fingers interlocked with only the world between them. And then the dove came and took the hands away. A tease. And she no longer felt deep sadness, because she was there. The dove had come. It had taken her hands to his.