Short Story: My Lovely Anne

Short Story: My Lovely Anne

“What time is it?” she asks, her eyes wide, awaiting a reply......

.... then as she sips her tea I remember the first day we met.

It was Valentines Day and we both started teaching Primary school on the same day. I was besotted the moment I saw her. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She wore her long dark red hair pinned up, with wisps trailing down the sides of her beautiful face. Huge dark brown eyes sparkled when she spoke.

“Hi, I’m Anne Sturrock,” she said , holding out her slim hand.

“Harry Prentice” I said, feeling the softness of her palm in mine. I held on to it a little longer than I should, but I don’t think she noticed. During that day I could barely concentrate on my class and kept raising my hand to smell the faint traces of her perfume.

“Fancy a scone?” she shouted, following me from the building, and she tucked her hand under my arm as we walked.

That was the beginning of the happiest days of my life.

We were married a year later and almost immediately, Anne fell pregnant.

She was so excited, but her happiness was short-lived. She lost the baby after five months.

Devastated as she was, it didn’t take her long to bounce back to her old self.

“I want to have tests done Harry” she said one day. “I need to know if I have the same problem my mother had”.

Her mum died giving birth to Anne, due to a heart defect which was only discovered during childbirth.

“We’ll go together” I said - crushing her to my chest.

The result wasn’t good. Anne had the same defect, and was advised not to attempt another pregnancy.

That night we talked in bed until the small hours. We made a decision not to adopt but to devote our lives to teaching other people’s children, then we fell asleep in each others arms, locking out the whole world.

After more than thirty years teaching, Anne decided to retire.

“I’ve been forgetting things” she said.

Six weeks later Anne was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease. After the shock, we armed ourselves with all the available information, and planned our future.

Despite drug treatment, her disease developed very rapidly.

We laughed as we put labels on drawers and cupboard doors, and I didn’t mind when she lashed out at me with insults. I knew it was the illness.

“I think I’m beginning to disappear” she said one night , as she lay nestling in my arms.

Anne is now in a specialised nursing home as I can no longer manage her illness.

I visit every day, and bring her to ‘our tearoom’ every Saturday, even although she

made me promise to stop visiting when she no longer recognised me.

She stares at me, as if begging me to release her..

“What time is it?”..

Tears fill my eyes, and I hold her hand...

“My lovely Anne..... how can I let you go......?..