There was a hole in her heart and she could feel it. For she had loved him for years and he knew not her existance. He never had heard her voice nor had he looked into her eyes. Nor had he enjoyed her presence. He did not know she had cooked for him there and seduced him there and watched him writhe in great ecstasy there. There, in the nook she'd scratched out in her mind.
He did not know her. He had a life. He'd married, sired children. Worked hard and retired.
He had lived his life. For God's sake, he had done it well. But she still loved him by the way side and kept him in her dreams, like an old photograph one never shows to anyone and brings out in the shadowed moments of solitude, when a sweet smile and a sigh are not invitation for querie.
She loved him.
They called her an old maid and she lived as one. Never marrying nor dating. Working as a clerk and doing little else. All who saw her smiled and inside they thought, "What be the psychology of this old hen that she never married nor sought a man".
In her mind she had brought forth his children and watched his great joy. She had breast fed his children. She had held him by the light of moon and listened to his greatest concerns. She had washed and darned his socks and answered his calls.
Amber Evening Nursing Home now held her in its crap smelling, sterilized bowels. The young women who tended her were amazed at the stories she told of the man whom she loved. For her family had assured them that she'd never married nor had children. She was alas, an old maid. A ninety five year old virgin. An eyesore to the history of copulating women and men.
"It is dementia", the nurse explained to the aides who cared for the old woman. "She's never been married nor has she had any children."
The young women still listened to the old woman's stories of love and marriage and family and they listened as if they believed it. For the old woman's estate paid their wages and her own lodging. The old woman's illusion of a life full of service to a man did not hurt anyone. Nor did her faint smile and words of undying passion.
When the old woman died, a stone monument was placed at her grave as she had requested and it read, She Still Loves Him.
Young women visit her grave to this day and remember not to fall for the disease which robbed the real life of the old woman. They lay the roses of reality at the old woman's grave and shout "Aha, for we shall not be so moved".
And they call her grave wisdom.