Ron Dionne                                                                                                   

The Wager

As he died, Roger realized he had won their bet, but forbore to gloat, instead basking in his last physical sensations on earth: the gentle pressure of his wife’s hand in his, her cheek upon his head. He was not, in the end, Catholic after all. All their lives together, since his announced agnosticism, Delia had predicted that he would return, when faced with death, to the faith of his upbringing: “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. You’ll go back. You’ll see!” And each time, beyond rolling his eyes and denying it, he silently recalled that day – that moment! -- in the back of the church when he had converted, from doubt to certainty. From that point on, he put his effort into convincing himself he was not the only sane person in the church during Sunday service, they were all for the most part such nice people, for Delia continued to believe in her religion, and he believed in Delia.

As his illness progressed through his last several months, from serious but let’s change the lifestyle to address it, to life-threatening and prognosis uncertain but possibly grave, to get your affairs in order there is nothing more we can do, to bed-ridden hospice care, their time together had become mostly quiet.

At his end, to his surprise, she did not bring up his lack of faith, though he lay there ready for it if she should.

She did not urge him to relent, when he thanked the priest she had fetched but refused the ritual.

She did not cajole him for placing his own ego above the ineffable.

She did not point out what he knew she must be thinking, that his occasional tears were not just the response of a limited biological organism conscious that its systems were shutting down, but agony for the welfare of his “soul.”

“Another bet?” she said instead, when his breath had begun to rattle.

“Bet?”

“I’ll find you. Or you find me.”

“Find…?”

“On the other side.”

He increased the pressure of his hand on hers, to the best of his ability.

“I know it,” she said. “I know. We will see each other again.”

She kissed him. Some minutes passed. She kissed him again. More minutes. Another kiss. She told him that of course they would always, always be together. A squeeze of the hand.

“My Roger.”

Breathing became too hard to do and comforted by the presence of his dear, beloved wife, he stopped doing it.

#

It was with great interest then that he became aware, now that physical sensation was done for, of the last, hallucinatory gyrations of his brain. There was fear, yes, but also fascination – what would his mind come up with as it started to decompose, that his consciousness would grasp, that he would be able to think about before… stopping?

A vast shoreline spread out before him. It must be dawn, or maybe dusk. Glare made him squint though the sky was grey, and no sun cast shadows. He stood upon a flat beach lapped by quiet waves. A series of dunes crusted with tufts of beach grass rose behind him.

It was a pleasure to be standing again, if only in a hallucination. Roger turned and moved toward the dunes, which had begun to look familiar. Had he been here before? Yes, after another awkward, sand-addled step, he was sure of it. Quite a few times had he been here. With Delia, with the kids when they were entering their teen years. With their dog Ruby, who hated the water. A favorite place it had been.

At the crest of the first dune, before he descended its far side, which would bring him out of view of the shoreline, he turned to study the beach more closely. Yes, this was “their” beach, or pretty near to it, a twenty-minute drive from their home. It was deserted. Only the gentle waves. A gull or two, some small formations of sandpipers.

He was almost proud. What a pleasant way, a pleasant place to die. He moved on. Once past the second dune, and huffing with the effort of walking on the loose sand, he realized he was not quite in the usual place that they had visited, but some distance south of it. He stopped to catch his breath at a stony outcropping to admire a night heron standing alone, blinking, before moving on. Strenuous as the walking was, it felt good and he was certain it did him good, to be up and about, especially in such a lovely place, after all that time laying down, ill.  And once he reached the flat roadside, the going was much easier.

He looked forward to seeing the old spot they had frequented once again. It was where they had often gone for beach days. Not as popular as some places a bit further away, never a concert venue or singles scene, just a quiet, almost cul-de-sac sort of beach. Some swimmers, families, couples, birdwatchers, beach-combers, even now and then one with a metal detector. The dog hadn’t liked it. Poor Ruby, like being unable to chew bones or catch chipmunks, she had been atypical of her kind, shunning the water, and had only huddled under the beach umbrella, out of the hot sun. It would be nice to see her again, the silly creature, though he knew that was not possible, death being final. Of course.

Soon enough he came to the familiar parking lot. It was empty now. It was still hard to tell what time of day it was from the off light, and he supposed it must be very early morning, else there would be at least one or two people about.

There marked off with a chain-link fence beside the parking lot was the bedraggled playground with the worn see-saw and never more than half the swings in repair adequate to safely put a child on them. And beyond the fence, the broad expanse of the beach, at a point where tides revealed then covered, then revealed again slender sand bars.

He hoped Delia was getting some rest since he had departed. She had been so good to him, so good, and must be exhausted. His death had taken so much longer than either of them had wished. He had wished it would have been accomplished in his sleep, so that she would not have to witness it. Guiltily, though, he was grateful that he had gone first. He would not have known what to do with himself if it were the reverse. He found himself gasping at the prospect. He moved on.

Arrival. Here was the spot. Here was where little Harry and Jenny had played in the water, Harry a kindly older brother resolutely looking out for his tiny sister, and Jenny wild, full of mischief. Pretty fairly they had turned out, those two. Poor Harry had suffered one divorce, but he’d soldiered on and was enjoying his new family, as far as he allowed Roger and Delia to see. And Jenny? A college professor in boondocks Michigan, the authorship of some books under her belt – nothing to sneeze at. They had turned out all right, to be sure, both of them.

The voices made him turn, surprised at not being alone after all.

There they were. Delia, Harry, Jenny. And with Harry were his second wife and his two sons from his first marriage. (In his hallucination, Roger was mortified that he could not remember the children’s names.) And with Jenny was her long-time partner Abigail and their dog, a wheaten terrier like Ruby, only this one apparently hadn’t skipped out on dog school and ran ahead, right past Roger, full of life and joy to frolic happily in the water.

Only Delia walked alone, carrying what it stunned him to see was an urn.

They were conversing among themselves. He knew this because he heard faint murmuring sounds and he saw their lips moving, though he could not discern what it was they were saying.

Each of them took off their shoes and rolled up their pants and eked into the water, stopping when the tiny wavelets skirted up over their ankles. They were speaking, fitfully, in turn, and Roger held back, feeling he ought not to overhear. Jenny cried, with Abigail’s arm around her. Harry, too, had to stop speaking at one point. His second wife – what is her name? – held his son’s hand.

Delia did not cry. When the speaking was done, she took a step or two further into the water and undid the top of the urn. She turned to face her family and they nodded at her, and she upended the vessel. Swaths of ash like vapor swirled from it in clumps, revealing the slightest of breezes as it fell. It took a few shakes to empty the urn.

And then it was done, and Delia passed the urn to Harry and held up one finger to wave them away. The lot of them receded to a respectful distance and Delia stood alone in the gently lapping waves. Her shoulder shook once, and she looked out over the water with her hands thrust in her coat pockets.

Roger went to her. Funny, his feet sank into the sand like they had always done before, but he did not feel the cold.

Beside her, he gazed out over the water, as she did, and enjoyed a short little while just being beside her again standing, not in a bed.

He reached into her pocket and took her hand.

She inhaled with the shock, and her mouth opened in surprise. She turned in his direction, though he knew she could not see him, and said, “Told you.”

[END]

Ron Dionne is an American living in London, UK, for the time being. He has published short pieces in the genre small press over the years, and has one novel, SAD JINGO, to his credit. Ron can be reached at @rondionne.bsky.social.