24 Hours

She turned her head to the window and let out a small sigh. The glass clouded with her breath for just half a second before clearing again. She wished that it could last just a little longer, but it never did.

I was driving. I always drive. It's just one of those things that we never question. All couples eventually fall into these sorts of habits. You get a side of the bed and a parking spot. One of you washes and the other one dries. You order each other's drinks. And you never talk about it. It just seems to happen that way. You just seem to know.

It was a little after 9 when I pulled up outside the cafe. Nia was already out of the door before I had even turned the engine off. She hadn't looked at me once the whole journey. I closed my eyes and unclipped my seatbelt. I waited for three seconds before getting out of the car. She was already walking towards the front doors.

We had been coming to this cafe for years. When we were young, this was the only place in town to get a decent cup of coffee. As the city changed and grew and Starbucks started popping up on every corner, we remained loyal customers. We didn't want things to change like they did. Our morning coffee was the one thing we had control over.

I wasn't in a hurry to get inside because I knew what had to happen. So I adopted a slow amble across the car park. I was enjoying the sunshine bearing down on my face and the crunch of the gravel beneath my feet. Savouring it, because I knew that soon it would all be gone.

The door gave away my entrance with a shrill ring. I almost smiled at the sound. It brought back years of fond memories. I couldn't even count the amount of times I must have heard that bell. I used to hate hearing it every morning. But this time it was different. I would never take that bell for granted again.

Nia was sitting in our booth in the corner, staring down at the plastic table top and tracing circles in a pool of spilt sugar. When I got a little closer, I saw that she had been drawing a love heart. When she saw me standing over her, she wiped it away.

I slipped into the seat opposite her. For the first time, she looked up at me. Her eyes were grey. They always go grey when she's upset.

We came here 'to talk'. Her idea, of course, yet she still hadn't said a word. I watched her think for a couple of seconds. I would miss that.

"Are you cheating on me?"

"No," I replied softly. "No, of course I'm not."

She nodded and looked away. I could see a glint of moisture in her eyes. Poor Nia. I was going to break her heart.

We were only teenagers when we fell in love. We were all we ever knew. And now here we were, married and with two children, but still drinking the same coffee we always did.

There was a new guy serving the coffee. He looked a little familiar but I couldn't place him. He bounded up to our table with a smile that I'm sure he thought was winning. "Good morning," he said cheerfully. A little too cheerfully, all things considered. "Can I get you something to drink?"

Nia was gazing out of the window again. It's all she ever seems to do these days.

"One americano and a vanilla latte, please," I requested. I thought I saw Nia smile but in a split second it was gone, just like the breath on the window.

"Coming right up," said the waiter, and then he was gone again, too.

I gave a short sigh and reached over for Nia's hand. She didn't even flinch as I wrapped my fingers around hers. She didn't move at all. I watched her as she watched the world go by. Her eyes were older now; each crow's foot telling a story. But still she was beautiful. Still she was my Nia. My wife. The only woman I would ever love.

I wanted to tell her this, more than anything. But I just couldn't. Not yet. There would be time to tell her everything. I just wanted a couple more minutes of this. A couple of minutes to hold her hand, and watch her, and love her, unconditionally.

These minutes passed too quickly. I supposed they always would, from now on.

"Here you go, guys," beamed the waiter as he placed two cups of hot coffee on the table. "Is there anything else I can get for you?"

A drink without the awful Americanisms would be nice, I thought. "No, thank you," I said.

He wandered off again, leaving us in the moment that he had so perfectly ruined. Nia was looking back at me. She was trying to figure out what I was thinking. I shook my head and took a deep breath. Time to tell her.

"There's something I need to tell you, Nia," I said slowly, but not as slowly as I'd have liked. I'd have liked to stop time completely.

She pursed her lips. "You're cheating on me," she whispered, with a nod, before turning back to the window. "I knew it."

"I'm not cheating on you," I reassured her. I took a long, heavy breath. "Nia, I'm dying."

Words cannot be taken back, once they are said. It doesn't matter how much you want to grab at the air for them and stuff them back into your mouth. Even if you could, it wouldn't make them any less true.

This wasn't how I wanted it to happen. But here we are.

Nia leaned in a little closer, her brows knitted together, her crow's feet squaking at me from the corners of her squinty eyes. "Dying?" she whispered, her voice a canvas of mixed emotions ranging from disbelief to anger to soul-crushing sadness. "You're dying?"

I held my breath and closed my eyes and nodded. Hearing it from her made it sound a thousand, maybe a million times worse.

She was silent for a couple of seconds before I opened my eyes. I wish I hadn't. All I could see was the woman I loved, frozen in shock and horror and god-knows-what else, her pale eyes brimming with tears and the hand that I wasn't holding raised to cover her mouth. She blinked once and everything fell from her eyes, teardrops racing down her face like a child's game played against the window on a rainy day.

And all I could think was how beautiful she was. I moved our hands up to her face so that I could stroke her cheek, and wipe away some of the tears. She was as limp as a ragdoll.

"I have a brain tumour," I said, quietly and slowly. "The doctors say there's nothing they can do. They say I have about three months."

This didn't soothe her, of course, but it didn't seem to make anything worse, either. Still she continued to cry, tears streaming down to her chin and then falling into her vanilla latte with a gentle plop. I couldn't do anything else but watch her, and hold her hand tightly in mine, and wait.

Eventually, she looked back up at me. The flesh around her eyes was swollen and scarlet, but the eyes themselves were a bright, sparkling blue. They always go blue when she cries.

"How long have you known?" she whispered.

"About a month," I replied.

She shook her head. "You should have told me," she said. "I could have..." She choked down another wave of emotion.

"You couldn't have done anything," I said softly. "Nobody could. I just wanted to leave it a little longer. I wanted us to just be normal for a little bit."

Nia let out a quiet, gasping sob, and put her hand back to her mouth. Her other hand was still holding onto mine. I never wanted to let it go.

For the first time, I felt myself start to fill with tears. But they weren't for me. They were for my wife and my children. How would they take my news? Would they be angry? Would they cry? Would they say that it's just so unfair? I liked to think that Nick would stop screwing around so that he could take care of his mother and little sister. But who knows how they would react? He might get ten times worse. This is just another thing I have no control over.

A single tear fell from my left eye, and I wiped it away with Nia's hand. It all felt significant. The cafe, the untouched coffees, the tears, the hands, the windows. The waiter who I finally recognised as the kid I sometimes see sitting on his rooftop at night. There had to be something more to all of this than me. Perhaps we are all connected.

I heard the bell signalling newcomers into the cafe. They were a young couple, holding hands and smiling. They were in love. We are all in love, all the time. Maybe that's what connects us.

Nia rose to her feet and came to sit in the booth beside me. She put both hands on my face and kissed me, softly. Our tears fell between us, mixing together and dying somewhere on our lips.

"I love you so much, Ben," she whispered through the kiss and the tears.

"I love you too," I told her, though she already knew that.

There was so much left to talk about. But not today. Today is for kissing and holding each other and crying. Today is for bright blue eyes and watching the world go by and cold coffee. Today is for life.