by Esther Mills

Created on: June 15, 2010   Last Updated: July 16, 2010

They are all that is left of their family - a gaunt, bald man, and his white-haired second cousin.  It has been such a long time she's even forgotten their childhood language.

It's all right; this is a miraculous day, and neither of them care.

"Do you remember It?"  He asks, and the guide-turned-interpreter relays the question to the half-deaf woman.  No one has to ask what It is.  It was the "It" that had changed their lives, haunted their dreams, and nearly extinguished their futures.  There was only one "It."

"Yes," she answers.  A cloud passes over her age-blue eyes when she nods.  The question takes her back there to It and she stays a moment, seeing, feeling, smelling.

"Please...tell me how you survived," he asks.

"There was a boy," she answers, a smile warming her thin, dry lips.  "We were in love.  He smuggled food in to me.  We had such big plans of escaping and marrying."

The cloud returns to her eyes.  They did not marry.  She escaped, but the boy did not.  Her cousin senses this as he watches her face, and he does not ask any more about it.

"Forgive me.  Would you like something to drink?"  She asks.  He begins to say no and then realizes she needs the momentary break.

"Please," his answer passes through the interpreter.  It makes him smile that it takes an interpreter to speak with his last living relative, but he is not sure if the smile is an amused or a sad one.  His cousin rises slowly.

"I have water, or I can make tea or coffee," she offers.

"Which do you prefer?  Tea or coffee?"  He asks.  For a moment she thinks, vacillating between personal preference and hostess-ness.

"Tea," she decides finally.

"Then I would like tea as well," he replies with a smile, which she returns as soon as the interpreter has finished.

When she returns, she brings out her finest bone china.  It has never been used before, but today it is the only thing she would dream of using.  He watches her hands as they carefully pour the tea into the delicate cups.  When she hands him his cup, he catches her wrist without premeditation and turns it to look.  She lets him.

Five blue numbers.

Tears sting his eyes and he stares at the tattoo for a moment, having gotten lost in It himself, until she pushes back his sleeve with her other hand and reveals the matching numbers on his forearm.

"Time...heals...NO wounds," she says, haltingly, in the shared language of their past, now strange on her tongue.

Their eyes meet, and despite their wounds they are suddenly content.  They have waited for this reunion, and now it is here, and life returns.

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