Growing Old

Most couples have hopes that they will last. When a person enters a relationship, especially for the first time, they tend to believe that that partner right there in front of them is the one they will spend the rest of their life with.

Realistically, only a very few manage to stay together, especially if it is their first.

However, Jung Jessica had always believed that she would be forever with the one she loved. Her partner loved her back, and with just as much passion as she to her. The two got along for the most part, and they occasionally had their perfectly healthy lovers spats every now and then, but that was standard.

Jessica picked up the photo frame which stood on top of the fireplace. It was cold outside and a little frost was gathering on top of neighbour's cars and lining rooftops. The fireplace crackled and spat in the corner. It was almost Christmas, and then the New Year. Those were holidays that she truly looked forward to, but this year it was different. There was nothing special about all the gift wrapping and huddling in bed together, watching the festival films on the television with boxes of chocolates. It was nothing compared to spending that time with someone else.

Her younger sister, Krystal, had offered to come over and spend a week with her, but Jessica didn't want her little sister to be away from her husband and kids. Krystal was determined to come over to the point of bringing her little, noisy toddlers with her, if it meant that her sister did not spend the new year alone.

Eventually, Jessica had agreed, but it didn't make things easier, if that was what Krystal had hoped for. It would make the pain more obvious, the missing person, the shadow that no longer lingered beside her.

This year, on the 22nd of February, Jessica had lost her long-time partner. Her name had been Hwang Tiffany, and she was the most beautiful girl with the most stunning smile that you could ever see. Her chocolate brown curls enveloped around a heart-shaped face, and her eyes shined like half-crescent moons. Jessica remembered how Tiffany would always be laughing, and how frustratingly clumsy the woman had been. Tiffany would bump into the christmas tree around this time, or would find difficulty in hanging the baubels. She would be crying right now at all the sappy christmas films that came on every year. She'd gobble up all the chocolate pieces from the boxes which Jessica had bought the week. Tiffany could never resist opening presents, and then she would have the nerve to be mad at Jessica for trying to guess what she had received!

Jessica wasn't the most social of people, and Tiffany was her polar opposite. When Christmas came around, Tiffany would make sure to send christmas cards to every single person down their road and beyond. She would ship presents to every single soul that knew her by name. Jessica would always grunt and sigh and demand to go home and complain about the cold weather. Tiffany wanted to personally hand each and every gift and card to all the people who lived near their area.

Oh! and when the radio came on, it was a bloody nightmare! Tiffany would sing along to every Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer, We Wish you a merry christmas, Santa Clause is coming to town, until would grow sore. She would grab hold of Jessica and then demand she sing along with her. Where Jessica was as cold as snow and as sharp as ice, Tiffany was as warm as the sun and as soft a pillow case, and if she dare say it, Tiffany had been the one to change her, bring her out of her shell.

Jessica checked the clock hanging on the wall. Krystal had said their plane would land at 7, and it was now seven thirty. This moment in time reminded her of when Tiffany had gone to visit her parents for a short while. It had only been for 4 days but Jessica had never felt more alone than ever before. She had no idea what to do, and she missed the sound of Fany's laughter ringing from wall to wall. The whole house had been frighteningly quiet and not at all like home at all. Not their home, anyway.

''Now you can get on with all of that paperwork of yours without me interfering!'' Tiffany had chuckled.

Of course the ever-smiling woman had bothered her many times while she was working on her projects and deadlines. She'd come in and beg Jessica to play a game of chess or charades. She'd whine about wanting to watch a specific dvd that she had recently rented and refused to watch without Jessica. She'd keep popping into their room and randomly kissing Jessica's lips and waiting for a response, and then somehow the two would end up on bed in a passionate act of love. Tiffany was a real trouble, but then the moment Fany left, Jessica found she couldn't work at all. She tried and failed and found herself staring at the same lines on her document.

And then, the day came where Tiffany had come home, and the two had hugged for such a long while, leaving the front door open and the cold wind enter the house and chill them to the bone.

Years and years had past, and now it seemed all a figment of her imagination. Only now, staring at the photo frame with the two of them holding each other and smiling at the camera, did it come crashing down on her that it was reality. This was her reality. Fany no longer existed. She could try and try to look for her, and try and try to find someway to bring her back, but it would be hopeless. The most? she would end up with a replacement, someone who vaguely resembled the woman she had loved for 39 years. The past continued to haunt her, and she would find herself reliving through flashbacks. When they met at school for the first time. They had both attended a boarding school together and had been classmates. When they had come out and confessed in college, and then when they moved in together in their early 20's.

Her lips, her eyes, her smile, the smell of her hair and body odour, the clothes she wore, and her giggles and her soft cheeks, and her funny little quirks. Her obsession with chick flicks and how she squealed when she saw a cute puppy and her longing for a child of their own of which they never had the chance. The ways she curled up on the sofa and her toe ring would poke out and stab Jessica and she would have to make Tiffany budge up. Fany's odd times of affection, leaving trails of kisses down her neck. Fussing her hair, following her around the house. And the many, many times that Fany had told her how much she loved her.

''I think I'm in love with you...and I know you're going to hate me for it, and you might think I'm disgusting for having these feelings..''

her words when they were 17 years of age echoed around her ears and filled the room with a certain disturbance. But she luckily avoided thinking anymore as the trill of the front door bell rung.

Jessica sat around the fireplace with one of the small children on her lap. The little dear stared up at her with a dummy in it's mouth and a small plastic soldier grasped in his hands. He waved the toy in front of Jessica.

''What's that, dear?''

Baby noises.

''I think he wants you to hold his toy for him.'' her niece who sat on the floor drawing in her colouring book, responded.

''Oh! oh, ok.'' Jessica took the little toy soldier from her nephew's hands, ''is that what you want me to do?''

Krystal came in, while her husband stood in the kitchen making some hot cocoa for all the grown ups. She saw Jessica smiling down at her son, and then laughing along with her daughter about the funny pictures she was colouring in. She could still see the faint image of pain in her older sister's eyes, but for now, she was happy to see her smiling ,because goodness knows how long it had been since the last time she had.

Krystal remembered it like it was just yesterday when her sister-in-law had been in the hospital in a recovery room. She was weak, her skin was wrinkly and she could only speak for a few minutes before she would tire herself out. She had all these tubes hanging beneath her nose and her frail hand would hold onto Jessica's with such desperation that it would break Krystal's heart. Fany had tried so hard to get better, but then, she had to be wheeled away one afternoon, and thus after, she passed away. The disease had taken her. Jessica had held onto Fany right til the very end, and she refused to let go even when it was time for her and the rest of their family to go home. Their mother and father had been there, Krystal and her husband and their two small children, and Fany's parents and her siblings. Friends would come visit. And her funeral was packed with many, many loved ones. Some people didn't come - they felt it wasn't such a big deal that someone close to them lost their wife. They were the types who had told Jessica and Tiffany that their marriage was invalid. But hell with them, Jessica was glad that they hadn't come and disturbed such a moment in her life that was already horribly bleak.

Jessica and Tiffany had seen some really hard times during their lives together. Jessica's family had been supportive, but Tiffany's father had disapproved of the relationship and had disowned her on the spot. He had said he didn't want a '' in the family. Tiffany, the ever so sensitive Tiffany, had cried her heart out, and Jessica had to calm the girl down. This was when they were 18 years of age, and were deciding on living together. At first, they lived together with Jessica's family, until they could afford a place of their own.

Once they got their own place, Tiffany had re-decorated the whole of the house with pictures of kittens and puppies. Pink curtains, and matching coffee mugs. Jessica had chosen a landscape portrait of hers from college to be hung in their bedroom. Tiffany was messy and had clothes all over the floor. Every morning, Jessica would pick up her significant other's top or skirt or whatever, from the ground. She's always give it a quick sniff to see whether it needed the wash - Tiffany always smelt deliciously good - after all, she had bottles of perfume lying on their vanity case.

They had tried searching for a donor. Jessica remembered being pregnant for those whole 2 months. She remembered Tiffany rubbing her belly in the morning, in the afternoon and evening. Jessica never let on how much she was in awe of the idea of having her own child. She had names picked out already. However, Jessica suffered a miscarriage. They didn't try again.

They celebrated their anniversary of the day they first met, 20th January. Every year, Tiffany would go out and get a chocolate cake and they would sit together at the table, with pink mugs of tea, reminscing about their turbulent relationship.

''Do you remember when we had that class assignment, and you didn't want to be partnered with me?''  Jessica recounted, with a smirk plastered on her lips.

Tiffany would always get mad at that piece of memory. It was their early days of meeting one another, and Tiffany didn't like Jessica much in school. Tiffany had been part of a popular crowd of girls at the time, and Jessica had her own little sect. Tiffany had been afraid of the 'sociopathic' young girl, as she referred to Sica at the time.

Jessica couldn't help but laugh, ''sociopath? me? thank you.'' she would respond sarcastically. Misconception after misconception - people always had their weird images of who she was.

Krystal walked over to Jessica and planted a hand on her older sister's shoulder. Jessica blinked, and the memories swirling around her mind stopped all at once, slowly fading away.

''Come on, snap out of it. It's christmas! and you're frowning!''

Jessica turned to look at her sister, grimacing, ''I wasn't frowning!''

Jessica always had the wrong facial expression on her face, and people always thought she was mad at them. One more quick dash of the eyes toward the picture frame on top of the fireplace, and a quick scan of her arms around Tiffany's. Their smiles. It was painful to remember sometimes, but also amusing. She continued to smile - reminding herself to not think of the hospital corridors, or the smell of death.

She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply.

The family sat together, watching a film and there was laughter in the air, and chocolates that were eaten in mere seconds into the film, and even swift tears at the bittersweet ending of the film. Bittersweet as life itself.