Reunited

Eleanore awoke with a slight start as a coarse but gentle hand settled on her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open to see a dark and handsome young man sitting by her bedside, his black curls poking out from under his top hat and the golden chain of his pocket watch trailing across his vest.

Eleanore didn’t recognize him, yet something about his features was intimately familiar. She shuffled to sit up and he removed his hand, pulling off the silken hat and giving her an apologetic smile.

“Please excuse my manners, I’m sorry to barge in like this,” he told her softly.

“Who are you?” she inquired. Her voice, which normally rasped for the first couple of hours in the morning, was strong and clear. She also felt a lightness in her joints, and an ease of motion that had eluded her since her 50s. She felt like a young woman again.

“We have a date,” he answered simply, cryptically. He offered her a sad smile.

Eleanore glanced down at the bed, then back up at him – alarm and confusion clouding her expression as she struggled to process his words. It quickly abated, however, giving way to a calm understanding.

“Of course we do,” she replied nonchalantly, gathering her light, floral robe around her. “And where is this date of ours, mister…” she trailed off, and the gentleman inclined his head.

“Call me Than. And we can go anywhere you want, Ellie.”

“Hmm…” she mused, lips turning up at the use of her late husband’s pet name as the years scrolled by behind her eyes. A replete cloud soon darkened her brow, however, and she turned to Than. “Can we visit my son?”

“Yes.”

Eleanore put on her favorite lavender dress, curled her thinning, white hair, and colored her lips and eyes for the first time in years. She figured if it was to be a date, then she may as well look the part. Than certainly looked dashing. They left the small house on the outskirts of Feyetteville and travelled the short jaunt to Raleigh. Eleanore found him there, hunched over his desk, poring over a dusty text amidst the drone of students buzzing by his office. It took her several moments to find the right words.

“I love you, Arthur,” she told him finally, fighting to keep her voice from cracking under the weight of emotion. “I’m so sorry.”

He peeked up at them in the doorway, no spark of recognition lifting his heavy frown as he shook his head and went back to studying the book. It had been just over twenty years since they had seen each other last, and Eleanore felt the familiar bite of regret as she remembered their parting words.

“I can’t stand to see you wasting your life like this. What would your father think?” she had fired at him, dismayed as she had always been by the devotion he dedicated to his research. He had taken no wife, fathered no children, and Eleanore could not imagine being fulfilled without being surrounded by family. It was that lack of perspective that had ultimately cost her the relationship with her only son, and so she found herself living out the empty life that she had imagined for him.

Eleanore felt a hand on her shoulder and gratefully accepted the handkerchief Than offered her. She dabbed at her eyes as they took their leave, and her striking companion stopped to check the ornate pocket watch he slipped from his vest.

“I’m sorry about your son, Ellie. It’s never easy,” he murmured sympathetically. “We do still have several hours left together if there’s something else you want to do.”

She considered it, balling up her grief into a manageable bundle and staying the last of her tears. “Will you take me dancing?” she asked him, remembering fondly all of the frivolous nights she had spent doing the bop and the jitterbug with Charlie.

Than smiled knowingly. “I have just the place.”

He brought her to a retirement village several towns away, and as they walked up the gravel drive to the clubhouse Eleanore could already hear Splish Splash hopping over to them on the afternoon breeze. Than was quite the dancer, but Eleanore held her own as they swung and twisted their way through the crowd. No one seemed to mind them crashing the dance party.

They stayed until the sun hung ripe and heavy on the sky, both of them still slightly winded as Rock Around the Clock faded more and more into the distance with each passing footstep.

“Do they do that often here?” Eleanore asked. She’d had just as much fun dancing as she had watching the residents around her. Each seemed like they had been teleported back through the decades, back to more carefree and sunny days.

“The first Saturday of every month, I believe. We were lucky,” Than commented with a wink.

“I bet you take all the young ladies dancing,” Eleanore teased him, and he barked out a short laugh.

“My dear Ellie, you’re actually the first.”

As the sky progressed from apricot to rose to plum to sable, Than brought them to the spacious back porch of a mountaintop lodge – a luxurious resort where she had spent many an anniversary with Charlie, and Eleanore was delighted to see that a candlelit dinner for two had already been laid out for them.

They talked and laughed over dinner, Than regaling Eleanore with tales of the incredible people he’d met. She swirled the crimson Merlot in her glass and almost choked on a sip as he described a fisherman who met his match with a piece of raw salmon, and the candles were burning low when he finally paused to check his pocket watch once more.

“Are you ready to go? It’s almost time,” he told her, and Eleanore nodded. She didn’t know what it was time for, but it was clear that her date with Than was drawing to a close. She neatly folded her napkin, placed it on the table, and Than lead her down a wooded trail that meandered away from the lodge.

The trees pressed close overhead, barely allowing the dappled moonlight to kiss the rock-strewn path. Her footsteps were strong and sure where recently she would have done well to traverse even a paved sidewalk, and Than eventually motioned for her to pause.

A man was emerging from around the bend, his silver hair receding from his kind, wrinkled face. He wore a plaid button-up shirt, one of her favorites, and he was instantly recognizable even in the darkened forest.

“Charlie!” Eleanore called out, and she ran to him. They embraced and held each other for a long moment, whole once again, and Eleanore turned to thank Than. He had already disappeared - presumably to take a different soul on their first and last date, and she took the arm Charlie offered her. Together they continued down the trail, and disappeared into the gentle night.