Martin is gone. The coffee bar is gone. Twenty years of aimless ambling are gone. A new life has begun, here in this bed. There will be art and gurgling laughter. There will be fabrics and clay, scissors and secateurs, there will be a mad jumble of colors and music and movement and games and ideas, ideas, ideas are bubbling, percolating, foaming up like milk heated on a gas flame, they overflow, dousing the heat and finally, as light pierces the horizon, she sleeps.
Hours later, the sun rising high on a perfect spring day, she rolls onto her side and brushes against his arm. It is smooth and cold as marble. She jolts awake and finds him in poised repose, as if he has chosen his final resting position. His splendid eyes are wide open, but she knows right away that their blue-green gaze no longer sees anything at all.
She takes a deep, deep breath. Here, in her bed, an ending and a beginning.