A Hundred Reasons

There was something about the waiting room – the dull colour of the plaster walls, the piercing smell of disinfectant hanging in the air, the chilling artificial breeze from the air-conditioning – that made him uneasy, uneasy on top of all the worry hanging over him like a cloud. As he saw the second-hand on the wall clock tick clockwise in its steady rhythm, he counted down the seconds until news would arrive.

The red light over the emergency room turned off, and immediately he stood up, anticipating the results of the operation. The door opened, and he saw the doctor he had been consulting for the past few months. The doctor shook his head.

“I’m afraid that, at this point in time, there’s nothing much we can do,” he said.

The man watched as his wife was wheeled out on a hospital bed. In silence he followed the nurses as they wheeled her to her ward. It was a small room – an individual ward. He could see the birds nesting on the tree out the window, enjoying the warmth of spring, but now he only felt a cold emptiness inside. He sat in numb grief by his wife’s bed as the doctor read out the details of her condition.

Cancer – it had come at an inopportune time. Their marriage was in tatters. A decade ago he had been fired from his job. Suffering from a mid-life crisis and on the cusp of obsolescence, he had turned to drinking, wasting away whatever little money they had between them. They had no children – they couldn’t afford any. She tried to help him back onto his feet, but as weeks drew into months and months into years, their situation stayed the same, and she could do nothing but despair as she watched him descend into financial and emotional ruin. It was his fault and his alone. A mere ten years of alienation had eroded the joys of the decades before. She must hate him, he thought, that cancer would strike her and not him, the deserving target.

“Dear,” he heard her whisper, and he looked down to see her awake, looking at him with those crystal-blue eyes he had fallen in love with decades ago, though now they were shadowed, her face gaunt from illness. In her gaze he saw reflected his own hopelessness, and his own helplessness now that she was fading away.

“I...” he started wearily, but he could not bear to tell her the truth. He wanted to say so many things – how he was sorry for everything, how he wanted to take her place, but the words stuck in his throat.

“I know,” she said weakly, smiling, and she turned to look out the window. He followed her gaze, sighing.

“Sometimes I wonder,” he heard her speak, “why it had to be this way.”

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, feeling a lump in his throat.

“Don’t be,” she reassured him, and she turned to look at him.

“Please don’t hate me,” he said, closing his eyes. When he opened them again he saw her tilt her head slightly to the side, giving that curious look he had seen many times in the past – a mix of wonder and amusement.

“I don’t hate you,” she said, grinning. “I love you, remember? I always will.”

He reached out his hand, placing his finger on her soft cheek, instinctively trying to feel her long, curly brown hair that was now a thing of a past after sessions of chemotherapy. She closed her eyes, enjoying his touch.

“And I love you too,” he replied, though deep down he knew that no amount of affection would make up for the years spent apart.

“Really?” she said mischievously. “Why?”

“There are many reasons,” he asserted. “I can think of a hundred. More, even.”

She laughed softly, and he smiled for the first time in hours. But suddenly laughter became choking, and she was overcome with a violent cough. He stood up agitatedly and yelled for a nurse. She needed rest, the nurses told him later. She needed to sleep. Come back tomorrow, they said.

Returning to the small apartment they shared, he sat down at the table they always ate dinner at. His words to her echoed in his mind. A hundred reasons. Were there really that many? The years of pain had eroded away the memories of happier years. Could there really be so many reasons to justify their being together? Absentmindedly his hand fell onto a book sitting on the table, and he took it up. He knew what it was – a little notebook they used to write little messages to each other now and then. He opened it, flipping through the entries.

"Going out to buy the groceries, dear. And I won't forget to buy the spices this time!"

"I had a great time at the carnival yesterday. We should go again the next time it's in town."

"It's been a tough day. I love you, I really do. Stay with me, please."

They were short and simple messages, yet within them contained the emotions of a lifetime being together. They revealed to him again how things had been in the past – the love and dedication – before it had all gone downhill. Before it had crumbled apart. The writing ended abruptly in the middle, with the last message dated the fifth of September five years ago – the moment they stopped communicating. His eyes brimmed with tears at the thought. He wanted everything to return to the way it was – how he filled the void in her heart so that she might fill his, how they stuck together through thick and thin – how they loved each other with all their hearts. He wanted it back, if only for a moment. He didn’t want their relationship to end like this, a pathetic whimper.

A pen lay by the book. Taking it up, he flipped to the first unwritten page. “A hundred reasons...” he whispered, and began to write. The sun dipped beyond the horizon, replaced by the glow of the full moon and city lights, and he continued to write. The lights in the neighbouring apartments went off, the city itself winding down for the night, and he continued to write. The first hints of dawn began to shine upon the clouds, casting an orange glow upon the earth, and he continued to write.

At seven in the morning he was seen at the entrance to the hospital, waiting for visiting hours to begin. In his hand he held the book, and as he sat down at his wife’s bed and opened it, she gave him that curious look again.

“What did you do with it, now?” she asked. He smiled.

“A hundred reasons,” he replied, and then he began to read.

Some of them were small, humorous reasons - "Because I owe you one from that time you paid for my coffee.", "Because otherwise the house would have to be split in half, and the television doesn't work in halves." Some were serious reasons - "Because I'd be nothing without you", "Because you helped me through my darkest moments."

As he read through each of them, they would pause for a moment to talk about it - about how that single event or fact defined their lives together – how it made its mark on their relationship, how it affected their love for each other. There was laughter and weeping, but never once regret, and as he continued to read them out, he wished more and more that he could follow her to the very end – into the void beyond the veil of death. He wanted to be with her, to cherish their final moments with each other. Now and then they hugged each other with the love only a couple married for decades could manage. Their eyes gleamed with happiness at the memories of halcyon days past, and as the day wore on, it seemed as if those days had returned, filling the ward with a youthful glow which reflected off their faces, as if through this conversation they were reliving their younger years – the years of marriage – both the joys and sorrows, the laughter and the lie. As the clock struck seven in the evening, a nurse came to usher him out for the day. She stood at the door, waiting for him, and then she called another nurse, then the doctor. None of them could muster the will to approach the couple. They couldn’t – not with the two of them so deeply engaged in experiencing their marriage once again, going back through time with each other, smiling in each other’s arms.

The next morning, the doctor found the man sleeping beside his wife’s bed. She had passed during the night, and yet on her face was a delicate smile. She had ended her life happily, with the man she loved – the man who would follow her always. As a nurse came to transfer her body to a morgue, the doctor wished he could let the man sleep forever, unaware of the reality - the loneliness, the massive hospital bill. He noticed a small book in the man's hand, and he picked it up, opening it and flipping to the last page. He smiled as he read its contents:

"#100

Because I love you. And I will follow you into the end."

I will follow you into this.

I will make sure we’ll stay right here.

I will find a way to stay alive.

I will follow you the way back home.

I will follow you into the end.

Author's Note: This was a short story I wrote in 2013, based on the song "A Hundred Reasons" by Ólafur Arnalds, featuring Haukur Heiðar Hauksson.