Promise

Here’s something Howard never knew. He didn’t know that when someone you love dies, you become a different person. You’re changed. On a deep, almost cellular level, he would never be the Howard he was the day before her death.

Howard loved Tina. He’d loved her since they met in an elevator twelve years before. She was chatting to her friend, telling a joke, and she turned to Howard and smiled, as if to include him in her conversation. 

When the elevator stopped at his floor he didn’t get off. Just stared straight ahead, wondering if she knew he was following her. And she did. As she was stepping off on the 37th floor she turned to him and said, “Tina. Tina Moretti. I usually leave around 6:30.” And she smiled her twinkly smile and headed off to work. 

What lucky people, Howard thought, how lucky those people are that get to work with Tina Moretti all day. 

He got to the lobby at 6:08 and waited. She walked across the lobby toward him at exactly 6:30. And that, as they say, was that. 

Tina and Howard. She said she just knew. She said he seemed shy but strong and that’s just what she liked so very much about him. And she was right. He’d turn day into night for her. He’d walk to the ends of the earth for Tina, if that’s what she asked. But she never really asked for anything until the end. 

Their love was simple in the best possible way. They loved each other with all of their hearts and were each other’s very first picks. They worked well together, enjoyed life as it came their way, celebrated each other’s victories and propped each other up when troubles arose. Neither ever felt restless or empty. Howard and Tina filled each other up in a way that is far far too rare.

The only snag came when Tina got sick. Howard had no idea how serious it was, but looking back, he began to see that Tina had known all along. Her single request was that if she were dying, Howard had to make it quick. She didn’t want to prolong her life, to have to lay in bed unable to move, to talk, to smile at Howard. And she made Howard promise. 

Promise was a sacred word to both of them. It wasn’t tossed around easily like, I promise I’ll fix the mower or I promise to be there by 9:00. Because what if the mower was broken? What if you couldn’t fix it and had to buy a new one? Then, in a sense, you’d have broken your promise. What if there was an accident and you got there by 9:23 instead of 9:00? Another broken promise. So they had both agreed to only use that word when it meant an absolute vow. A promise. So Howard promised her. Yes, he said, yes, I’ll make it quick. He said it easily because she was fine. Tina wasn’t going to die. Everything was going to be alright. 

At the end the doctors said he could take her home from the hospital. Make her comfortable. Hospice. They gave him a medication calendar, and pills, and a walker (A walker! For Tina?! They didn’t know anything!) and names of the nurses who would be arriving the next day. 

Howard had made up the bed with her favorite flowery sheets and laid her down gently. She was so much smaller. It was all happening so fast, Howard couldn’t keep up. Tina’s voice was soft and much rarer now, but her eyes still shone like stars. He looked into them now, silently begging her to keep living. So he could keep living. Please, Tina. Please. Please. 

“Howard,” she whispered, “you promised.” He told her he thought that they might be making a mistake. Or the doctors had made a mistake. Clearly, an enormous mistake had been made because nothing was right with the world if Tina Moretti would be missing from it. Tina Moretti was life. She was too filled with energy and love and laughter and kindness and courage to go missing. What would happen if she left? Where would she go? It was impossible to even think about. So he didn’t. 

He made her soup she couldn’t swallow and filled glass after glass with her favorite juice (mango) which went untouched, her bright eyes following him as he puttered around the room, desperate to bring her back to life. 

That night they lay side by side on their bed, holding hands, listening to each other’s breath as they’d done for years. They turned and looked at each other, a soft light filtering through the windows. “Howard,” she said. He began to cry and Tina’s small hands, always so gentle, held Howard close as he clung to her and the exquisite life they had shared. “I promise” he said as he wept, knowing he had to do the one thing in life that he could never ever imagine doing.

They spent that last night together talking. Realizing that all the important things had already been said, which was a great comfort to them both. 

They talked through memories, old jokes, Howard brushed her shiny hair. She asked if she could wear her favorite dress, his favorite too, with small forget-me-nots in the pattern. He slipped it on her carefully, zipping it up one final time. He measured out the pills and stroked her pretty face. 

“Keep living, Howard. There’s more love than you know.” He nodded because that’s all he could do. But Tina Moretti had him make one final promise to her. “Promise me.” It cost her so much to speak as her life had begun to fade. And Howard promised, unsure of what he’d even promised to do. She died just over an hour later. He held her for two more then got up and called the nurses, canceling their visit.

So today, eleven months after Tina’s funeral, Howard went for a walk. He walked past the diner they had their Sunday breakfasts at, walked past the shop that sold Tina’s favorite perfume, walked past the second-rate bakery Tina bought pastries from because she worried they were going out of business. He walked past his barber shop, then stopped, turned around and walked inside. 

He didn’t know the barber, it was some new guy who asked Howard if he wanted a cut and a clean shave. Howard sat in the chair and the man snapped a striped cape around his neck. “Been awhile, huh?” said the barber. As Howard began to answer, he coughed, unaccustomed to using his voice. “Yes. Yes, quite awhile.” 

The barber was a quiet but comfortable presence as he expertly cleaned up Howard’s ignored and overgrown hair. He shaved away the stubble that had been sitting too long on Howard’s now mournful face. 

Once done, both of them gazed at Howard in the large mirror. The barber smiled, satisfied. “A new man, unstoppable. Ready to face the world.” Howard’s feelings didn’t match the barber’s enthusiasm, yet reflecting back at him was a new man. His life was permanently altered, but it was in that moment that Howard realized the alteration didn’t have to be all bad. 

He tipped the barber well, as Tina would have insisted, and continued his walk. 

Since her death Howard saw the world through new eyes. Sadder eyes. Eyes that still searched for Tina in a crowd and probably always would. 

But now he decided to keep his eyes open to possibilities. To unexpected joy. To love in all of its forms.  And he wouldn’t stop. He would keep living because Howard kept his word. Because Howard had made a promise to Tina Moretti.