by Christa Joyce

Created on: February 05, 2007   Last Updated: April 23, 2010

Sleep Sweetly

Piotr turns away from the fourth floor window. He has been watching snowflakes tumbling from the midnight sky. He envies them their freedom and simplicity.

Inside the small room, a lamp throws out pale golden beams of light, casting a halo over the tiny form in the small hospital bed. Adele, his wife of sixty years lies there in uneasy slumber waiting to die.

Throughout the wintry night Piotr keeps vigil. He watches her face, notices the lines that life put there now gently being erased, smoothing out, taking her back to time before pain robbed her of her dignity. In his heart Piotr knows that when all the lines are gone, she will go too. The pain of this knowledge weighs heavy upon him, stooping an old soldier's shoulders until he is hunched over, as if trying to protect his very heart from breaking.

Piotr has seen terrible things in his life. He has been through wars, seen men killed. He doesn't speak of such things now. Nobody is interested any more. It is all past. Still he carries those things inside, keeps them battened down. Adele knew. They shared many things, many secrets.

He wanders to her bedside and sits in the chair the nurse placed there for him earlier. He watches Adele as she sleeps, notes the gentle fluttering of her eyelids as she dreams. He wishes he could be there with her.

The pain of anticipated loss sears through his heart and he closes his eyes, reaching for her hand, which lays limp on top of the neatly folded blankets. He grips her fingers in his and squeezes a little too hard. She moans gently and her head, with eyes still closed, turns on the pillow to face towards him. Piotr releases his grip and strokes the papery skin of her hand. He mutters to her in Polish mindless that, in all their years together, she never could get to grips with the intricacies of his native tongue.

Piotr's words are lost as his head slumps to the bed and he mutters his pain and love into the warm hospital bedding.

It is dawn when Piotr wakes. The bright morning light has somehow transformed the soft lamp glow to a garish yellow and he reaches up to snap off the light. As he leans over her, he sees that the lines that life put on Adele's face, the pain and the laughter, are gone. The shock steals the breath from his lungs and his hand rushes to his throat to coax it to suck in oxygen. He gasps and splutters, unsteady on his feet he fears he will fall on her, crush her. He steadies himself, swallows air. With one hand on the bedrail he leans over, holds his cheek just inches from her lips and waits.

Several seconds pass before he is rewarded with the soft fluttering of her breath against the roughness of his unshaven face. Relief washes over him and holding her hand gently in his, he dips his other hand into his pocket. His fingers grip his prize and he folds it deep into his palm. With trembling fingers, he gently opens her hand and covers it with his. His words are barely a whisper.

"Biora moj jed." He brushes her forehead with dry lips "To bylo zawsze wasz." Take my heart. It was always yours. When his hand leaves hers, he closes her fingers around his gift.

Adele opens her eyes for just a moment. Her fingers feel the solid red heart in her palm and she smiles at him.

"Spia moj serce." He kisses her hair. Sleep sweetly my darling.

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