by Maria Thompson

Created on: September 11, 2008   Last Updated: January 16, 2011

A gun shot shattered the quiet of the setting sun. It startled the lone doe a hundred yards down the shoreline. She raised her head; her drinking disturbed she ran quickly into the woods to hide. The sound spooked the birds in the trees surrounding the little cottage. They took to the skies momentarily and then just as quickly settled back into the branches.

The old man sat in his wicker chair on the porch of the little winterized cottage watching as the sun set farther into the lake. It had been a beautiful sunset. Evenings and sunsets were his favourite time of the day. The sunset brought peace and quiet at the end the day. He was sorry the quiet had been disturbed by the sound of the gun shot. But now it was quiet again and he sat letting the quiet engulf him. He knew he would have to make the call, he had promised his children. They said it was time; he could no longer put off the unavoidable. He could no longer look after his beloved Alice, she needed constant care and he needed to let her go. He knew they were right, but he had promised to love her forever and care for her in sickness and in health. He glanced over to the chair beside him, where his beloved Alice sat quietly. In a little while he would make the phone call, but he needed a little bit more time, a little more of the peace and quiet.

He closed his eyes and let the memories of the past fifty plus years flood his mind. The memories started with the first time he saw Alice, her long brown hair blowing in the wind as she rode her bike past his home, to the day he proposed and the day Alice walked down the aisle in her wedding dress and they promised to love each other forever. She was eighteen he was twenty. Memories reminded him of the four miscarriages Alice had and the realization that she would never carry a baby to term. Their decision to adopt and the adoption of four children, two brothers and two sisters. The years of happiness and joy as the four children grew into adulthood, their marriages and the birth of grandchildren. The years flew by, he and Alice celebrating 25 years of marriage and then 35, 45 and 50 years of loving each other. The day he retired after 40 years at the same job, the purchase of this little cottage, the renovations of the summer cottage into a winter home. The years waking up to the singing of the birds and the rolling of the waves, going to bed after each sunset and falling asleep to the quiet sounds of the country. He smiled at the memories of the happy times, and let out a quiet and sad sigh. The last few years had been hard not to many happy memories there. He remembered when his beloved Alice became sick and how each year she became worse until there was nothing left of the person he knew and loved but a body that did not respond to his gentle touch and a mind that remembered him not.
Wiping the tears that ran down his face he got up to make the phone call. . He knew it would take them fifteen minutes to get to the little cottage. Plenty of time for him to sit in his wicker chair and finish his tea.

It took the paramedics half an hour to get there, time made no difference to the man on the porch. The paramedics walked up the few steps to the porch. There they saw an old man sitting in his wicker chair staring out onto the lake with vacant eyes. Beside him sat the woman he had loved for the past fifty some years, a bullet hole through her heart. One hand covered the woman's frail and thin hand, the other held a letter and his last will and testament and in his lap was the gun that had ended the life of the women he had promised to love forever.

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