Gordon Fecht had only one tie, but it was his favorite. The faded blue silk had a certain shimmer to it that he loved. For years Pauline had dragged him through all the department stores whenever a family wedding was announced. His wife had wanted Gordon to find a new tie for the occasion, but Gordon had looked at the flashy satin with disdain and refused to let her buy a single one. His old blue tie would do just fine.

      Pauline had called him stubborn, cheap, and old-fashioned. Well, all of that he was, and she knew it. But what the dear woman had never realized was that he particularly liked this tie because it was the exact same color of her eyes. When Pauline got out the old photograph albums they would sit on the loveseat with their coffee (she liked hers with a little milk) and finger through the worn pages while the morning sunlight spilled on the floor. In all the pictures of Gordon his tie gleamed like old silver in the drawer.

     Now Gordon sat on the empty loveseat, flipping through the old pictures in the cold morning. Alone, with his black bitter coffee, the white milk he had poured with shaking hands still swirled, suspended near the surface. He liked to look at the photographs of just Pauline. Pauline laughing with a glass of red wine. Pauline’s beautiful hand on someone’s shoulder while she talked. Pauline standing near her chair, her hands folded, gazing around the room with an unearthly happiness. In all the pictures of he and Pauline, the tie was a sad pale shadow of her glowing blue eyes. Gordon blinked, and cleared his throat roughly.

He began to shut the book, when the very last page caught his eye. There was a picture in the back he had never noticed before. He gently pulled it by the corners out of its trappings. A picture of he and Pauline, dancing. He was grimly smiling for the camera, but Pauline’s sparkling eyes were fixed on Gordon’s chest, one of her slender fingers stroking his blue tie. The tie seemed to brighten under her gaze. Her face was bright.

      Gordon tucked the picture carefully in his shirt pocket. He closed the album and quietly left the room. He walked down the hallway and slowly opened the door to his room.

     He went to his closet and retrieved his tie. He carefully slipped it around his neck. Gordon straightened the knot in the mirror and walked into the hallway. Gordon twisted the door handle of the room where she slept and stepped inside.

     Pauline’s shrunken form rose and fell like a butterfly delicately opening and closing her wings. He searched his wife’s grey face, her fragile eyelids shifting in her sleep. He knelt down and took her small hand in his.

     After a few moments, she woke. Her dazed eyes fell into the soft stream of blue flowing next to his heart. Her gaze rose to meet his. Gordon’s hand tightened around hers.

     She smiled her special smile at him. They held hands for hours, not speaking, just gleaming like old silver.

    I asked Grandpa if he wanted more coffee, but he didn’t even look up. He’d been sitting on that old threadbare couch for hours, looking through pictures of him and Grandma. I made him a fresh cup, black, the way he liked it.

    I doubted he realized I was in the room. I placed the cup near his left hand and folded his fingers around the warm handle. I went back to the kitchen.

He had been like this for a month. Ever since the doctors had told us they couldn’t do anything else for Grandma. There was nothing any of us could do. He never spoke, never smiled, and never registered that anyone else was around. Mom and Uncle Robert had agreed he shouldn’t be left alone. It was my turn to babysit right after school.

    I knew I was being cold-hearted. But I didn’t really think about Grandma dying. I loved her, but that pale shrunken thing hoarsely breathing wasn’t really Grandma anymore. I pretended it wasn’t her, because it frightened me.

Every night the whole family would come over and make dinner together, and we would all visit with Grandma. But it wasn’t really for her sake, it was for our own. She was in a fevered dream most of the time, anyway.

    Whenever I went into the room with her alone, I didn’t go near the bed, or stay for more than a few minutes. I usually kept my eyes on the door and hummed under my breath, keeping my thoughts focused on the grandmother that used to love me and know who I was. The grandma who could come walking through that door any moment and throw this white hacking bundle out the door.

    But Grandpa never went in to see her, even. Mom had tried to get him to just talk to her for a little while, to just let her know he was there. But he wouldn’t speak to anyone. And he wouldn’t go near that room.

    I walked back out to the living room. Grandpa’s eyes burned at the pictures, his fingers tracing Grandma’s face over and over again.

I moved to the window to watch the cold sun begin to set. A wet cough startled me mid-step. I looked at Grandpa, who had turned to the last page of the book. His body went still as he took in the last picture. I carefully moved to look over his shoulder.

   It was a picture of Grandma and Grandpa dancing at my cousin Jenna’s wedding. Grandma was wearing a flowery black and white dress with a gold brooch. Her hair was curled, and her face was rosy. Grandpa’s hair was slicked back, and he wore a grey suit, with his old blue tie. He smiled his serious picture smile.

   It was a nice picture. They used to smile like that when I came to their house after school. Grandma used to make us all tea and cookies. She had always smiled, every time I saw her. I wanted to forget all of that though. I wanted to forget that she ever existed, to make it easier.

   I was shocked to see the photo album closed, and the loveseat empty. I heard footsteps creaking down the hallway. I hurried after them, feeling a sudden sense of panic. I skidded to a stop. Grandpa walked past me, unseeing, into Grandma’s bedroom. I watched him walk to her side, kneel down on the floor, and take her hand. Grandma’s faded blue eyes opened. Her expression was not confused, or hazed with pain. It was full of something. I didn’t understand it, but her eyes weren’t empty. Tears blurring my vision, I closed the door, unable to face them all over again.

   Sometimes I used to think that there are things that are too weak to be alive. I used to slip my small hands into the metal mouth of my desk and feel the coolness, feel the strength there. Our teacher would talk about how plants survived and how their roots grew deep. I used to look at our “garden” (cardboard egg cartons full of dirt and a few sprouting green tendrils) and think they didn’t look very strong. Their slight forms bowed to the sun every morning and then shifted away into the shade of the afternoon. They never seemed to stand straight.

   Grandpa wasn’t standing at the funeral. Shoulders hunched, hands folded, he sat in a red chair next to Mother while the man in the white dress spoke over the person he had spent his entire life with. I didn’t look at her small hands or her thin eyelids. I looked at Grandpa’s strong wiry shoulders that I had seen lifting hay bales and shoving cattle. I looked at his strong shoulders and saw them bowing to the candles on the coffin.

   After school I would shed my backpack and tennis shoes and start running. My legs felt fast, but breathing came hard. I ran until sweat ran off of my tanned skin, my arms cutting against the wind, my shoulders strong. I ran until I couldn’t anymore, gripping my knees, heaving in oxygen. My shoulders bowing, I looked back at the distance I realized I was the weakest of all.

   After or before all of this, I can’t remember which, I was feeding my grandfather ice cubes in a plastic cup. He had tubes and an oxygen mask sucking his nose and mouth in fog. His chest would rise, his lungs wheezing, and then fall in one gasping breath. I was used to Grandpa snuffling, but the inside sounds scared me.

   Our family had crowded into the hospital room, sitting tensely on chairs and window ledges. Weak balloons presided cursorily over our goodbyes. Someone, my aunt, maybe, handed me the cup full of ice. “He likes a little now and then” she told me. I stood up and edged close to him, confused but glad she had asked me. I wanted a reason to touch him without seeming too young. Someone pulled back his mask and guided my small shaking hand to his dry lips. Ice tinkled into his mouth, I saw his tongue flick wetly.

   I looked into his eyes then. They were blue, like my own. At first I thought they looked old and sad, sad over everything. But before they put the mask back on his lips curved a little, I saw them. His eyes creased and they were bright when they looked at me. My index finger touched his knuckle, and his hand grabbed hold of mine. We held tightly for a while, like it was a game.

    They talked about it afterwards a lot. “He got to be so weak,” everyone would say. “He started wasting away.” I didn’t think so, but I was too quiet to speak. I remembered his strong hand gripping mine, had felt his grasp was enough.