Charon's Crossing

"You would have no one to talk with but me."

"Ah. Yet another tragedy."

"You have a life in the world, Kathryn, a career you've said you enjoy."

"The wonder of computers. Wait until I show you what happens with a phone jack, a modem, and an adaptor."

"And what of Waring?"

"What of him? He's dead."

"I don't know that. He may come back, and if he does—"

"Are you afraid of him?"

"Aye. Not for myself, but for you."

"I'm more afraid of the emptiness of a life without you."

"Kathryn," Matthew said tightly, "I will not let you do this."

"I am a free and independent woman. I can do anything I want, and what I want is to be with you." Gently, she pulled his head down to hers and kissed his mouth. "I love you, Matthew."

He tried not to close his arms around her, but it was like trying to keep from breathing.

"Kathryn," he whispered in despair.

"Shh," she said, and kissed him again.

After a while, there was no more to say that could not be better said with mouths and hands and hearts.

* * *

Kathryn would not be moved.

"Stubborn woman," Matthew said grimly, and she smiled and said that "stubborn" was simply another word for "determined."

He gave up arguing. There was no point to it. She had an answer for everything, no matter what he asked or how brutally he phrased it. Even when he reminded her that she would age and grow old while he remained young, she only blanched for a second and then she said that if she could love a 184-year-old man, he could love a 60-year-old woman.

"Especially if she takes a week or two off for plastic surgery," she said, and set him first to grimacing with an explanation of what such surgery entailed and then to laughing with an exaggerated mimicry of what the results might be.

But, in his heart, he didn't laugh. He thought, instead, of what it would be like for him to watch her grow old. Not that he would care about the wrinkles she would collect, nor the sags. He knew, with the clear instinct of a man deeply in love, that his Kathryn would be forever beautiful in his eyes.

What he imagined instead was what agony it would be to see the years race away as she gave up her youth, her very life, for him.

She deserved better. He had to find a way to ensure that she got it, that she had a future instead of a present that was forever mired in the past.

But she was beyond convincing.

And then, quite by accident, Olive Potter paid an unannounced visit and showed him the way.

* * *

"Kathryn," Olive said brightly, when Kathryn opened the front door. "How good to see you again."

"Hello, Olive. Won't you come in?"

Olive stepped inside the house, the smile still affixed to her lips. "My, you have accomplished wonders, haven't you? The place is so polished and bright lookin'!"