Angel

He reached out to her, sad and puzzled. The shadows were long and the day cooling down. For several years now, he had been returning to the same spot every evening, to watch the sunset and to hear her, if only for a few moments.

Every day - the failures, successes, events, programs - had been discussed and he had listened attentively to her comments.

Over the years he had learned to read her body language, much more than he did when she was alive. The slightest flush across her face, a tinge of movement in her wings, a little burst of energy - he would see it and had learned to read it for what it was.

He now regretted the time they had not spent together, the days busy chasing work, money and an ephemeral definition of success that never seemed to come his way.

She was late today. He had already been ten years too late. He remembered the day she died, her eyes looking straight ahead and her last message to him, "I will never be far away from you".

There, he felt the flutter of her wings, the lightness of her being.

The pain was getting worse. Cancer, the doctor had said.

"Don't fight anymore", she urged., It is time to move on. He had tried to resist, initially. The kids need to be settled; the property disposed of. Other things to be done.

She had shaken her head but urged speed. And now it was all done.

She reached out to him and he willingly surrendered to her light.

They found his body the next morning, frozen from the cold of the night, but with a bright smile on his face. Almost as if he had been welcoming the inevitable, they said.