Do we take wedding photos?
Hattie thought for a moment and then agreed.
The Baker family quickly arranged it, and most of their wedding photos were taken outdoors. They chose a sunny day and went to the beach, snow mountains, deserts, grasslands… They watched the sunrise at 6 in the morning, saw flowers with dew at 7 in the morning, and waited until dawn to see the sunset.
They also took many night scenes and encountered a meteor while taking night photos. Hattie saw the meteor heading towards the sea.
“I want to go somewhere tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“Chiwood.”
Chiwood is where two women are buried. Elisa’s ashes were scattered at sea after she died in a fire, and Aoife drowned. In this day and age, those who fear fire die in it, and those who fear water die in it.
It’s not a short journey, they didn’t take a plane but drove for twelve hours. Micah stopped driving three times to ensure he was alert enough to drive.
When they arrived at Chiwood, it was already night. They rested in a hotel for a night before going.
Hattie stood in front of Aoife’s grave and looked at her photos. She had visited here shortly after being released from prison, and now, a year later, not much had changed.
Aoife’s tombstone was clean, as if it was wiped every day. Hattie squatted down and placed the sunflowers she brought next to the tombstone.
“I don’t know what flowers you like, so I brought sunflowers. Even though you’re gone in this lifetime, I hope you’ll thrive next time, and you’ll still be the clean Aoife.”
At first, Aoife visited her in prison and said she would wait for her to be released and live well.
She waited and finally came out, but Aoife became a lonely grave. She didn’t know if her words reached her.
“Look at me, I said I would survive longer than scum, and now I have. I am very happy now, and will be in the future.” She couldn’t help but think, if Aoife had held on a little longer, would things have been better?
Hattie’s voice was choked up. She had made it through because she had Micah by her side, but who was with Aoife back then?
…
After Hattie and Micah got married, they didn’t live with the Baker family but settled in a two-bedroom apartment.
Micah continued to work as a doctor, and Hattie also went to the hospital to help. She couldn’t hold a scalpel anymore, but she could recognize medicines. Her mind was still sharp, and she and Micah could still work together to research various cancers.
One day, Hattie received a call from Peachshire Town Hospital, informing her that Harry was not well.
Hattie was stunned. It had been 35 years since Harry’s imprisonment, and for ten years he had been tortured, with fingers and toes damaged. His internal organs were injured, but he had saved forty million for treatment and medication, and always said he couldn’t die because of Hattie. Otherwise, he might have died a long time ago.
His condition had deteriorated, but he had held on for 35 years. In the past five years, he had been living in the hospital, somewhat peaceful with someone taking care of him.
Hattie never inquired about Harry’s condition, so the hospital calling her was to inform her about Harry.
Harry was almost seventy now, and at sixty, he had developed dementia and was always confused.
One day, he got up at six in the morning, dressed, and stood at the door. When his caregiver asked him what he was doing, he just said, “It’s seven in the morning, I need to take Hattie to school.”
When Hattie first went to the Stewart family, Harry used to take her to school for a long time and pick her up in the afternoons.
“Take Hattie to school?”
Harry nodded. “Hattie has art class today, I need to ask her if she can draw a picture of me.”
Now, Harry’s thinking, emotions, memory, personality, and consciousness were impaired. He couldn’t distinguish the present time. His memory was often confused; in the morning, he’d remember being eighteen, in the afternoon, he’d remember being seven, and in the evening, he’d remember being twenty-eight.
Of course, there were times when he was normal, acting like an ordinary old man, slow in response and disinterested, sitting in a small wooden chair, gazing at the clouds in the sky.
Harry was three years older than Hattie, and when she first came to the Stewart family at twelve, now his memory was stuck at fifteen, the age when he used to take her to school.
“Is Hattie in school?” He’d keep looking if he couldn’t find her, hobbling around feeling for her.
He couldn’t go too far, someone always kept an eye on him. After going out for a while, he’d return to his room, then go to the bedroom and to the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror.
“Dad, what are you doing here? Have you seen Hattie?”
When no one answered, he hesitated, then raised his aged hand to touch the mirror, realizing it was his older self.
For a brief moment, he regained his memory, and after dinner, he’d start to get confused again.
He wanted a cake, and the caregiver had no choice but to bring a steamed bun with a fork stuck in it, telling him that it was a cake.
He held the bun and said, “Today is Hattie’s birthday.”
The calendar showed it was October 27. Even in his state, he remembered Hattie’s birthday on that day.