“This is our home, Dad, how could you forget again? I’m your daughter Winnie, and this is my brother, your son Elias.” Winnie explained this to Louis at least three times a day.
Only when he heard their names, would Louis have a reaction to remember them.
Winnie took out her phone, opened the family album, and showed Louis the family portrait: “Dad, look at our family portrait.”
Looking at the photo, Louis’s gaze lingered on Elisa, and he unconsciously blurted out, “Elisa.”
His memory was sometimes good, sometimes bad, but after Winnie’s reminder, he had an impression.
Seeing that it was still early, Winnie wanted Louis to go back to his room and rest a while.
Louis was reluctant, not because he didn’t want to sleep, but because he couldn’t. His mind became unusually clear at night, thinking about how Elisa, who had been together for forty years, had passed away, leaving him alone. Louis found it hard to sleep all night.
He held Elisa’s photo in his arms, carefully caressing her face. When Elisa was by his side, he often made this gesture. He had been doing this for decades, looking and caressing her face, never getting enough.
How could he stop thinking about it? The person he had loved for forty years would never be seen again.
On New Year’s day, the TV was showing a variety show, but no one was watching.
Before nightfall, Louis lit up all the lights in the house one by one. Tonight they were eating dumplings, symbolizing a happy reunion.
Standing on the balcony, Louis looked at the lights in the distance. Winnie brought a bowl of dumplings and placed it on the table, reminding Louis to eat.
Louis took a sip of the soup and found it not sweet enough. This taste wasn’t to Elisa’s liking. He walked to the bedside, opened the drawer, took out some sugar, tore open the wrappers, and put them in the bowl to melt.
After tasting it, it was sweet. He unconsciously picked up the bowl and said, “Elisa, the dumplings are sweet, you should try…”
Turning around, he suddenly remembered that Elisa, who liked sweet things, had passed away half a month ago.
Louis stiffly put the bowl down, looked at the dumplings floating in the soup, smiled with tears in his eyes. The tears fell into the bowl, creating ripples. A good bowl of soup turned “bitter” again.
This New Year was undoubtedly the loneliest celebration. There was not a touch of red, even the fireworks in the sky paled. Only the lights in the house were on, shining into the distance.
“Elisa, I’ll leave the light on for you. I know you fear the dark, so remember to come home when you see the light.”
Louis, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, loved to wander. Once he went out, he couldn’t find his way back, causing his siblings and household staff to search for him everywhere.
Sometimes he went to the orphanage, sat by the river, and wandered to the amusement park… He walked the same paths Elisa used to take, searching for traces of her.
Today, he was supposed to go for a check-up at the hospital, but halfway there, Louis ran off. Where did he go?
He went to the cemetery and sat by Elisa’s grave, holding a string of candy apples.
Elisa loved to smile. She had requested the photo shoot herself, and she had selected the photos too.
In the black and white photo, Elisa smiled sweetly, with a gentle curve at the corner of her mouth.
The sunrise, the sunset, the romantic starry sky – all the scenery he had seen in his life didn’t compare to her smile. Playing by her side as his greatest fortune in this life.
“Elisa, I’ve come to see you, and today I brought your favorite candy apples.”
He tore open the transparent wrapping, ate one and left one on the ground, wrapped with a clean tissue. There were a total of eight candy apples, of which he had eaten four. They were sweet and sour, causing a stomach ache and the loss of a tooth due to acidity.
Literally, he did lose a tooth. Louis spat out his tooth, looked at the tooth covered in sugar frosting in his hand, smiled and said, “So… I’m already this old, old enough to lose my teeth, and my hair has turned white…”
Just two days after Elisa’s death, his hair turned completely white.
After finishing the candy apples, Louis took out a handful of candies from his pocket, all the flavors were Elisa’s favorites.
On a chilly February day, Louis sat next to the tombstone shedding tears silently, lonely wrinkles on his face.
He was truly tired, too tired… his body was exhausted to the point of numbness.
With eyes half-closed, Louis gazed into the distance, mumbling, “Elisa, take it slow, wait for me…”
Since childhood, he had been mistakenly taken to the Burns family and became the child bodyguard, doing servant’s work. It seemed that his arrival was only to protect Hamish, to die in his place if danger came. He lived in inferiority until, at the age of nine, he found a crying child at the amusement park and carried her home, adding a ray of light to his dark life, allowing him to live for himself.
At the age of ten, the Burns family was in chaos. He put on Hamish’s clothes to lead the bandits away, and eventually fell off a cliff, injuring his brain, becoming the fool, Autumn, for fifteen years.
He was shot at the age of twenty-five, falling in front of Elisa, once again losing all his memory, this time becoming Louis.
At thirty-two, he met Elisa on a plane and fell in love with her.
At thirty-five, Elisa married him, and during the same year, Elisa became pregnant.
At thirty-six, he became the father of two children.
At sixty-nine, he lost the love of his life.
Approaching seventy years old this year, two months after losing Elisa, he finally couldn’t bear the loneliness and wanted to go find her.
In the moment Louis closed his eyes, he seemed to see a door opening in front of him, and Elisa appeared, reaching out to him with a smile, “Big brother, Autumn, Louis, Louis, remember… we promised to be together in the next life.”
Louis held the candy tightly, gazing in Elisa’s direction, gently curling his lips.
It was good, he and Elisa had made an agreement for the next life.
Louis loved to wander, and his siblings couldn’t possibly let him go without preparation. So, they had already installed a locator on him, although he didn’t know.
This time when Louis “ran away,” his siblings had already seen the location reminder on their phones. Winnie had wanted to intercept him, but was stopped by her brother.
Their father wasn’t running amok, he was just going to the cemetery to visit their mother.
He missed her too much.
Worried about him getting into danger, the siblings secretly followed him, keeping an eye on him from a distance without approaching to disturb him.
They saw their father on the roadside buying a string of candy apples and entering the cemetery. They watched as he sat by the tombstone, eating the candy apples one by one and holding the leftover sticks. They then watched as he took out a handful of candies from his pocket and placed them in front of their mother’s grave. Finally, they saw him hugging the gravestone, his face against their mother’s photo, peacefully falling asleep.
The seventy-year-old man held onto a candy the whole time, and as the weather warmed up, the candy slowly melted in his hand.
In life, memories fade, but love remains steadfast until the end.
– (End of Elisa White’s Story)