Love and Be Loved

When Cyril and his wife first met, they didn’t like each other very much. Then again, at the tender age of six, you don’t particularly care for much other than dirt and GI Joe’s when you’re a boy.

He would admit, later in life, that he was in fact quite taken with her, and it was really she that didn’t like him, because he teased her. Then again, at the age of six, you can’t be taken with anything to do with girls.

His mother ordered him to take her outside to play, which he did, and proceeded to ignore her completely. She didn’t seem to care to speak to him, so he sat up in his half completed treehouse (alright, so it was really just a platform in the trees then) and watched her play with her dolls and his cat, whenever it would grace her with it’s presence.

She was on the rather pudgy side, baby fat still extremely evident in her cheeks, and she was almost an entire head shorter than he was. Her hair was strawberry-blonde, and she had a healthy sprinkling of freckles over her cheeks and nose.

She was, in a word, beautiful.

He became bored after a short while, and climbed down from the tree, and walked over to sit by her, still watching. She ignored him, so he figured he had better poke fun at her.

“You smell funny,” he said matter-of-factly. That was a lie. She actual smelled quite nice, for a girl. Like strawberry soap. She scowled at him, her beautiful features scrunched up.

“Well you look like a pig,” she replied dryly, sticking out her bottom lip and stomping off towards his tree.

He groaned loudly, and ran after her, grabbing her wrist. “You can’t go up there. No girls.” (Even if it was just a platform in the trees, it was his platform in the trees, not hers. She would infect things.)

She twisted her wrist in his grasp for a few seconds, and when he didn’t let go she pushed him, so hard that he fell hard on his bottom. Sticking her tongue out at him, she climbed up the tree, crowing like a bird in triumph.

“I’m Peter Pan!” she shouted before going over to the other side of the platform and disappearing down the side of the tree.

To be sure, this made him even more stricken with her.


Cyril met his wife again the summer his baby brother was born, shortly after he turned nine. She was even prettier than he remembered. She had more freckles, and her hair was dark red. She was still much shorter than he was, but that was alright.

She was around a lot that summer. He liked the way she was. He absolutely loved the way she was.

He loved the gap between her two front teeth. He loved the way her cheeks dimpled in when she smiled. And she smiled a lot. He loved the sound of her voice when she would read him books that he didn’t understand. But he loved the most when they would lay on their backs in his treehouse, and pull back the tarp roof to look at the clouds. He loved the most being quiet and knowing he was there and so was she and that he could reach out and run his fingers through her silky hair, which he did often.

It was on one of these days, when her mother was helping his mother, and she had ushered them out of the way, that he first told her he loved her.

They were laying on their backs in the treehouse, her head resting on his shoulder, right where it connected to his arm. The only sound was her breathing softly, until he said her name. Something made her sit up and look at him, slightly leaned over to look at him, the ends of her hair tickling his nose.

“Well, you know, I like you a lot...” hr began, clearing his throat and avoiding her eyes.

She smiled, and her cheeks dimpled in the beautiful way that they did. “Of course, I like you to, Cyr.”

He shook his head, sitting up, nearly bumping his head against hers. “No I mean,” he stopped and swallowed, his voice dropping, even though he knew no one could hear. “I mean I like you like you.” He cleared his throat again. “Do you wanna marry me?”

She smiled again. “Of course.”

And they were married then and there. He found a couple of twist ties in his pocket and twisted them into a ring, with a flower from the tree in place of a stone, and gave her a quick peck on the lips.

He didn’t see her for nearly two weeks after that day, and he was begging to think that she didn’t love him anymore, and was prepared to be extremely heartbroken, when she called him.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Cyr?”

His heart beat quickened at the sound of her voice and he replied with a ‘yes?’ His face fell as she continued to speak. She was sick, and she sounded it. She said she had something called ‘luke-hemia’ which was a type of cancer in her bones. Her life was draining. She was dying, slowly, and there was hardly anything they could do to keep her alive.

His wife, the love of his nine years was dying. Why was this happening to him what had he done? What had she done? He promised do visit her, to help her get better. She was going to be better. He loved her too much for her not to.

He never saw her alive again.

He didn’t speak very much, for a very long while. His brother was born, and he still didn’t talk. His father got a new job that required they fly, which he was deathly afraid of, and he still didn’t speak.



It was cold, for a July afternoon. The last strands of summer had been clinging desperately that past week, but today, the cold had won over. It was dark and overcast, in that way that made you want to shout “just pour already!” at the sky. The streets were almost completely empty of people. The few that were there seemed to be hurrying to someplace, or if they didn’t have anywhere to go, rushing to seem as if they were hurrying to someplace.

Leander Scarmure sat in the park across from the courtroom. He had just lost his first and only wife of thirty-eight years. She’d left him for a man thirty-nine years younger than her, forty-two more than himself. A man young enough to be their grandchild.

He was a rather sad sight, there on the bench. His once joyful blue eyes were a dull, lifeless gray. The short brown curls had several faded silvery white patches. His carefully pressed suit showed a wrinkled green button-down.

Leander looked up when he heard a small grunt beside him. A small boy, who seemed to be in rather the same mood, sat slumped at the other end of the bench, the look on his face nothing short of completely downtrodden.

“Hello,” he said miserably, then sighed deeply, in that over dramatic manner that young children always manage. “What’s happened to you?” the boy asked, looking at him with raised eyebrows and an overly pained expression.

Leander smiled sadly at the child. “I’ve just lost my wife,” the man replied. The boy nodded solemnly, as if he understood completely.

“Me too.”

Leander was slightly surprised by this, but didn’t comment out loud. This boy couldn’t be much older than eight or nine. He appeared to be barely over four feet tall, his hair was cut short and curled around his ears and forehead. He was a handsome little thing, and yet he spoke these two syllables in the calmest way, the most serious he’d ever seen a child that age be.

The boy held out a hand, still with that solemn look. “My name is Cyril.” Leander shook the boy’s hand and and introduced himself.

Cyril was silent for a brief moment, staring past the old man, before he looked him in the face. “Would you like to hear about my wife, Leander?”

Leander had been around the block his fair share, being sixty-three years of age, and never had he been told by a nine year old that they were, or had been, married. Leander nodded. “I would.”



Cyril finished his story, about the beautiful girl who stolen his heart. When he finished, he smiled sadly at the man. “Leander, the greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.”