Eternal Love

by Lev Minkovsky

  By her mid-60s, they no longer celebrated his birthdays. He found them depressing. “It is me who is supposed to become a year older, but it is you who actually does”, he once told her. She came home one day, as usual a little late, and he welcomed her with the news: “My dear, today is an important day for me. I just turned 100.”

  She was surprised and a little astounded. She long since lost track of how old he really was. “Well, congratulations honey”, she said, “you are certainly the best-preserved centenarian in human history. Let’s go out, it is a very good excuse for both of us to get drunk!” In the age of self-driving cars, DWIs were no longer an issue…

  ~~~

  In her early 70s, she unexpectedly for everyone decided to retire. She told Peter that the school budget was getting really tight and she felt that her salary should go to somebody with more urgent financial needs. “Every course I teach could be taught by some assistant professor.”, she said, “And if I teach it, that assistant professor won’t be able to and their future tenure could be in jeopardy. Every grad student I advise could also be advised by somebody else, and they would satisfy their research requirements that way. The department gave me so much over the course of the 50 years I’ve been here, and I cannot possibly ask for more”. Much to Peter’s relief, she kept her office at school. She also continued to teach her Indian course as an adjunct.

  She was now at home much more than she used to. They had long since paid off their mortgage, and Peter could reduce his trading activities. “After 105, one needs to be careful with their money”, he told her laughing, “I’d better become a tad more conservative”. They spent more time together, watching TV or just reading, he at his desk and she in her recliner by the fireplace. The “Precious Moments” system was now much more prolific in its output. Peter upgraded its cameras to newer models with better optics and microphones. He enjoyed life as never before.

  And then one day, everything changed. She came back from her doctor’s appointment, took off her coat and told him: “Honey, there is something I must tell you”. She never spoke to him in such a slow and hesitant way.

  “I don’t think we ever discussed things like this”, she said, “But now we have to. Last week I had my biannual mammogram. The radiologist found a spot that looked suspicious, and my doctor ordered a biopsy. It came back abnormal. I didn’t want to tell you anything, because you know how I like to talk about my health. I hoped it would be normal, but it wasn’t.”

  Peter didn’t say anything. He felt as if everything inside his mind got suddenly frozen.

  They sat silently for some time and then she continued: “Tomorrow I will see an oncologist and discuss with him my options”.

  The oncologist told her that she had a small malignant tumor in a bad location. The same week she had a surgery that removed the tumor and several lymph nodes. For the next half a year, she did her radiation and chemo therapy.

  Peter took over all the chores around the house. His mind and soul continued to be numb, as if they too had a surgery with general anesthesia. He tried to focus on the simple tasks at hand, because he was incapable of anything else and this mental blockage was unbearable. They barely spoke over the course of these months.

  She was then told that although all known malignancies had been removed, she would have to do hormonal therapy for the next five years.

  Their life gradually returned to normal. They accepted that they were no longer in control of what was happening to them and tried to live in the present, just enjoying each other’s company.

  Quite unexpectedly for Peter, she became very involved in politics. She followed everything that was going on on a local, state and national level and was very passionate and opinionated about it. She registered as a party member and became an active participant of local political events. Peter pondered upon this new side of her for a while, and it occurred to him that in a way their behavior was very illogical. She was a lady in her seventies and a breast cancer survivor. One could argue that her future horizons were limited, and all this political minutia should not be relevant for her. She continued however to argue with him about election campaigns and public speeches. He on the other hand would have to live with the consequences of these elections, both immediate and indirect, both positive and negative. Yet politics were the farthest thing from his mind.

  ~~~

  Five years passed, and much to her relief, she no longer had to take hormonal tablets.

  In a few months, in late spring, she started having back and hip pains. They came and went at first, and because they seemed to be better when she moved, she attributed them to her age. Then they became continuous and started bothering her at night. She called her doctor and he told her to come for an appointment as soon as she could. At the appointment, he heard her out, prescribed some extra-strength pain medication and asked to call him if she would notice any new symptoms. She told Peter afterwards that he seemed to be quite worried about something. Peter tried to make a joke that perhaps the doctor’s wife had filed for a divorce, and immediately regretted it.

  The medication helped, and for a couple of weeks she felt almost normal. Then she started having some strange constant fatigue. She had to really drag herself out of her recliner chair to go to the bathroom, which she had to do a lot because she was thirsty all the time and couldn’t stop drinking. Her meals were left largely untouched. She asked Peter to call the doctor on her behalf, because she felt she couldn’t think straight. The doctor told him she needed to be immediately hospitalized. He also asked Peter who he was to her. Peter replied that he was her son.

  They came to the hospital together; the doctor was already there. He ordered some tests and told the nurses to connect her to the IV. She was given some narcotics and fell asleep.

  Peter spent the rest of the day by her side. He went home to take a shower, grab something to eat and get some sleep. Next morning, he returned to the hospital and saw her oncologist. The test showed a very high level of calcium in her blood. The oncologist thought that this and other symptoms she exhibited were caused by the reemerging cancer that had metastasized in her spine and hip bones.

  She got better with medications and was discharged from the hospital. She was now on daily opiates. In a couple of weeks, the fatigue and thirst returned, and she had to be hospitalized again. After she was discharged, she rested for a couple of days and told him they needed to talk. She was as usual in the recliner chair by the fireplace, so he had to move his chair to sit closer to her.

  “I do not want to go to the hospital again.”, she said, “It is pointless. If I am to die, I want to die at home. I wanted to talk to you now, while I am still capable of having a conversation; I may not have much time left. “

  “If something happens to me, on the desk in my study you will find a check on your name. That is all I have.” She caught her breath and continued. “I also wanted to tell you something else, something I wish I told you years ago.” Her eyes became wet with tears.

  “I wanted to tell you I was sorry. I was sorry that back after we met, I didn’t love you the way you deserved to be loved. I was young and foolish and took many things for granted. I thought: “A girl needs a boyfriend, to date and hopefully one day to come home to”, and you suited for that role so well. Now I understand that my whole life with you, I lived like a princess. You took care of everything so that I could focus on my work. And you, you knew even back then that this would happen, that I wasn’t forever young as you were, and eventually you would have to take care of me. Who was I to you that you had to sign up for all this? I was not your mother, I was not even your wife, remember we never married… And then later on, when I became older than you were, I was afraid. I was so afraid that you would leave me at some point, send me to a retirement residence or something. How would I live alone without you? What do I know about life? English language and literature, that’s all. I never had to deal with things like a roof that leaks. You looked so yo
ung, and this was a university town, there were so many pretty girls waiting at bus stops…”

  They sat for a minute in silence. The only thing Peter could say was: “Don’t be silly, I would never have left you.” Another long, silent minute passed. Then Peter got up, went to the linen closet by the front door and turned off the “Precious Moments” system. He decided she wouldn’t want it to continue to run.

  In five days, he woke up while she was still asleep. He didn’t want to wake her up and had his breakfast alone. When by midmorning she didn’t come out of their bedroom, he came there to check on her. She was already gone. Her heart just stopped.

  He called her doctor, left the front door ajar and went to the window in the dining room. The young leaves on the trees in their backyard were light-green and translucent. He looked at them until he heard the ambulance doctor and the paramedics enter the house. Then he turned and told them she was in the bedroom. The doctor quietly said to Peter: “We are so sorry for your loss.” After a brief pause, he asked: “May I ask you who are you to her?” Peter answered: “I am her son. I came here to stay with her when she got sick”. The doctor nodded and followed paramedics into the bedroom. Peter turned back and continued to look in the window at the spring trees lit by the midday sun. He heard some noise behind him, as if several people carried something heavy. Then the doctor told him: “I will leave a death certificate on the table. I am not sure if you know this, but your mother signed a form authorizing the university’s medical school to use her body for educational purposes. After that we will cremate her, and if you want, you can come by and pick up the urn with her ashes.” Peter replied, without turning to the doctor: “No, this won’t be necessary. Just do with them whatever you do for people who have no relatives. “The doctor said: “Again, I am very sorry for your loss”. Peter didn’t answer. The front door closed.

  ~~~

  Peter decided to sell their house and move back to New York City. The check he found on her desk was in seven figures. She was apparently paid fairly well in the last years of her career but continued to live as if she were a graduate student. He had some money of his own as well. He could buy an apartment in Manhattan and still have enough money to live on the dividends. If things would get tight, he could always get back to trading.

  He went to the department store and bought a nice leather briefcase. Then he drove to the bank, deposited her check and put the contents of his safe deposit box into a briefcase.

  On the way home, he stopped by a real estate office. A young man sat there reading a book; he must have had a slow day. Peter told him he had a house to sell and gave him the address. Later the same day, the agent came to see the house. He said it was in a good shape and recommended Peter not to worry about dated appliances; the new owners would replace them. Peter asked him whether they would potentially be interested in some of their furniture, and the agent told him politely that he would prefer to show the house without furniture. The realtor wasn’t impressed by the “Precious Moments” system but said he would include it in the listing. Peter gave him the keys to the house she used to carry in her purse and promised he would give him a call when the house is vacant.

  After the agent left, Peter took the briefcase with his papers and went into her study. He was hoping to find her archive, maybe some old photos of her taken before they met. There was nothing there however except for numerous books and papers and her university diplomas hanging on the wall. If she had an archive she must have kept it on her laptop. The laptop was encrypted and required a password to log into; he didn’t know that password. Peter decided to take the diplomas and the laptop and donate to the university everything else.

  It was already an evening, and Peter had to turn on the lights. He sat down at her desk and took a blank sheet of paper and a pen. He thought for a moment and started to write:

  To My Beloved:

  You told me the other day what you wanted to tell me for so long. You know, I also had my own fears that I could never bring myself to talk with you about. After I shared with you my unbelievable secret, I was afraid you would break up with me. I thought that like any woman, you wanted your man to live a life with you and grow old together with you. Why would you need me then if I could not be such a man? You were so beautiful and so smart, you could easily find somebody like you, somebody normal, somebody who would forever be a little older than you. And you would be happy and have children and spend your golden years with him. Who am I after all? A failed scientist, a nobody who through some bizarre accident of fate fell out of step with humanity marching toward Death, each to their own, and got pushed out on a sidewalk…

  Your Peter

  He then removed her diplomas from their frames and put them and her laptop into the briefcase. He thought that if not for the “Precious Moments” system, his life story would be in that briefcase.

  The next morning, he went to an office supply store and bought many moving boxes of various sizes and several big rolls of bubble wrap. Back home, he copied the recorded videos from the internal “Precious Moments” storage onto the primary and the backup storage servers and reinitialized the system. The new owners would find it as if it has just arrived from the vendor. He then shut down the servers and packed their hard drives into two sets of boxes, carefully rolling the bubble wrap into large balls around them. The old hard drives from prior decades were packaged the same way. He decided not to bother with the rest of computer hardware and buy a replacement for it in New York.

  Peter needed somebody to securely deliver the backup hard drives to his future apartment. He called a local moving company and told them he needed to put something very valuable in storage, to be delivered to New York City at a later date. They came, put the backup boxes on a pallet and very thoroughly strapped them to it. Peter wrote down the order number and told them he would call when he knew the delivery address.

  Peter had lunch, packed the books and papers from her study and went to the university library. He told the librarians that a distinguished professor had left a library after herself and asked them to keep whatever they wanted and discard everything else. They agreed, and one of the librarians helped him to carry the boxes from the car into the library.

  He returned home and brought several moving boxes into their walk-in closet. He selected a few of his shirts and other clothing items that were fairly new and packed them. He also packed two pairs of shoes that for whatever reason were still in their original boxes. Then he put the rest of the closet into trash bags, went to a local charity and gave them the bags as a donation. They gave him a signed form to fill out for tax purposes, he crumpled it in his pocket and later threw away.

  Peter spent his last night in their house. In the morning, he took the remaining boxes with hard drives and very carefully carried them one by one into the trunk of his car. He then put there the boxes with his clothing and shoes. The trunk was now full, so the briefcase went onto the passenger seat.

  Peter still needed to tie up some loose ends. He called several estate cleanout companies and found the one that could come right away. When they arrived, he told them to remove from the house everything that was still there. He stood in silence and watched as his and her furniture was lugged from the house into their truck.

  After they left, Peter called the utility companies and asked them to turn off their services tomorrow. Then he called his realtor and said to him that the house was ready for future showings.

  Peter surveyed the house one last time. He wasn’t a sentimental person. The house had served its purpose, and now it was the time to move on. He went into his car and entered as a destination an extended stay hotel in New York City.

  ~~~

  Peter checked into the hotel and brought into his room the boxes with his personal items. Then he went to a local computer store and bought himself a laptop. He couldn’t believe how light and thin it was. He never had a laptop before, and her laptop was very old and much thicker.


  He had no identification documents anyone would deem valid, and no way to get such documents. He needed to figure out how to live in New York unidentified and had come up with a couple of ideas. He would buy an apartment on the Timeless Ventures’ name. He would then pay for his living expenses with the debit card linked to his Antigua account. The regulators there likely preferred to spend time on a beach and would not be concerned when a business account paid for items like groceries, dry-cleaning and movie tickets.

  Peter began making a series of phone calls to local real estate firms. He needed an apartment as soon as possible, hopefully something spacious but not necessarily near the subway, not necessarily in a perfect shape and preferably in a building without a doorman. Showing appointments started to appear on his calendar. Their house in North Carolina wasn’t big at all, but after he saw a few Manhattan apartments, he realized he had lived for many years in a mansion while paying next to nothing for it.

  When not out for a showing, Peter often sat in an uncomfortable hotel chair, drew doodles in a little notebook on a cluttered desk and contemplated his long term plans. “If I looked into my situation in a detached, objective way, what would I decide to do? What one is supposed to do if one has no family, no financial concerns, no strong interests and unlimited future? It could be argued that for a man to be happy, he needs to have a woman in his life. And she was right, instead of trying to find a shoebox to live in here, I could buy something decent in Ann Arbor or Ithaca and seek attention of pretty girls, on bus stops and elsewhere.