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In the middle of the English countryside, a kissing gate stood between two fields of corn. It was 1946 and the war was over. Johny held his guide Molly towards the gate. This was their special place. Years before the war, they had stood in the same spot, where the little lane converges with open countryside, and he had swept her into his arms and told her he loved her. A kissing gate seemed to be the right place to capture the moment. Johny remembered. He was older now, and gray hair was thinning. His eyes looked tired and his back bent in pain. Their years together had known little regret, though were nearing an end. Johny knew it and wanted to leave some sign of his love for Molly before departing.

The doctor had told him he had six months to live. It had been hard to swallow at first, but Johny accepted it more easily than Molly ever would, so he said nothing. Of course, she noticed that his back was bent and that his hands trembled when he took his cup of afternoon tea, though she knew the soul inside and never expected him to be anything but who he was. Cancer was a cruel illness. It chewed away at you until you knew it was winning. He didn't want treatment. He had seen what happened to those who chose this route. They lives may be extended by a short period of time, but how valuable was it to spend those last months fighting the poisons which are intended to fight the inevitable? No, chemotherapy was not for him. He wanted to say goodbye to the world as a whole human being, rather than one withered by chemical interference.

Molly poured the afternoon tea and looked over at her husband. She saw within that withered and aged look a young man with whom she had fallen in love. Somehow love goes further than outside appearances and blinds itself to the inevitable. Of course, he would spill his tea. He always did. Of course, he would struggle to read the newspaper and ask for her to read aloud. He always did. These were just part of who he was. She remembered the time he had offered to run away with her when they were young, to avoid parental disapproval of their marriage, though in reality, the war with Germany was over, and so was the social war her parents had fought so harshly for. A kind of new acceptance overcame the British public, fiercely proud of their men in uniform who had come back to victory.

Johny winked across the room at Molly. In his easy chair in the conservatory, he lay back and after winking, closed his eyes. He was tired.

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