Eighty-Sixed: Chapter 97 - All You Can Eat

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The white Pomeranians were running directly at her, their tiny legs pumping and mouths open in crazy-looking grins. Manes of hair flowered out from their faces like miniature harmless lions.

“Frodo!” Becca called out as the first one reached her. The other was close behind. “Samwise!”

The dogs leaped onto Becca’s lap as she sat on the grass amid an enormous field as big as a football stadium. The grass rolled against gentle slopes that seemingly ran into endlessness in all directions, surrounded by a pure white sky as bright as the center of a spotlight.

“How’d you get here, boys?” she asked playfully, laughing as the dogs deliriously lapped at her face. “Get down now, get down!”

She laughed even more as the dogs began to chase each other, faster than she ever remembered seeing them run, racing over one ridge and back up another. She suddenly realized then that Frankie was now sitting next to her, holding her hand in both of his.

“You hurt me, Becca,” he said plainly. “I don’t know why I never just said it to you straight. Pride, perhaps. I just wanted you to somehow instinctively know it.”

“I don’t blame you for anything,” Becca answered. “And I could never apologize enough for being so wrong.”

“Did we get too used to each other, you think? After so many years of marriage, I don’t know if we were just so preoccupied with doing our own things or when it all started to fall away. I can’t imagine I’m entirely guiltless here.”

“We were together but separated,” Becca said.

“Exactly. Walking parallel, I suppose, but not really in union.”

Then, almost simultaneously, it dawned on both of them they were somehow impossibly out of the grasp of the black hole that had just bore down on them as it pulsed with ferocity. They were out of the storm.

“So what’s this place, then?” Frankie asked.

“I was going ask say the same,” Becca said. “But somehow, I don’t quite care. Isn’t that strange? After everything else? I feel…I don’t know…I guess, peace, somehow. Isn’t that odd?”

“I feel it, too.”

“We’re dead, I suppose. That would make sense in a place like this.”

“But I thought we were dead the first time this happened,” Frankie said. “After that first black hole. Couldn’t this be the same?”

Time seemed to fold in on itself then, passing quickly and slowly all at once as they sat quietly, entranced by the solitude of this cloudless, skyless place entirely carpeted with lush, thick grass. They watched the dogs scamper, then would turn and wordlessly stare at each other as thoughts passed effortlessly between them.

“Do you remember Dinkel’s?” Frankie suddenly asked and smiled at Becca. “That rainy day we met?”

“Of course!” she said. “And you were trying to cover your head with a magazine.”

“Don’t know why I thought that would work.”

“Wouldn’t a cup of coffee be delicious right now?” Becca asked, and as she spoke the words, suddenly, they were sitting at a small round metal table beneath Dinkel’s dark brown awning with cream-colored coffee cups cradled in their hands. Each mug was filled with dark coffee embossed on top with a swirl of froth fashioned into the shape of leaves.

“Do you smell that?”

“The daily special, I presume,” Frankie answered, inhaling deeply. “Smells like something with cinnamon.”

“Their pastries are amazing,” Becca said. As was the case with the cups of coffee, they suddenly bit into thick, doughy rolls spread with sugary glaze and cinnamon butter, so soft that the bread melted as it touched their tongues.

When they cleared their plates, Becca looked across the table and retook Frankie’s hands into her own.

“I don’t know if I ever said it clearly,” Becca said. “But I am indeed so sorry.”

“I know.”

“But I need to say it, and I need you to hear it,” Becca answered. “I don’t know how I can ever fix all I’ve done to us and the world.”

“I forgive you,” Frankie said. “I never thought I’d be able to, but somehow, maybe it’s this place, but I do. And I feel it deeply, too. Like I need you to understand just how much I forgive you. Because forgiving you feels so much better than being angry at you, but I need you to forgive me, too.”

“For what?”

“For holding my own grudges, I guess,” Frankie answered. “For not forgiving you sooner and without you asking.”

Tears welled up in Becca’s eyes and flowed down her cheeks.

“What is it?” Frankie asked.

“You’ve no idea what that means. I didn’t realize how much I was hurting.”

They were back on the field again, the white light somehow warm like the sun while not coming from any single source. There was no sun in this place as they sat on the rolling green fields.

“But what about everyone else?” Becca eventually asked. “I mean, I literally destroyed the world.”

“But no one is here but us,” Frankie said and laughed.

“And the dogs.”

“And the dogs.”

As they spoke, they looked down, and Samwise and Frodo were now sleeping at their feet.

“Are we here forever, then?” Frankie asked. “With endless cups of coffee and pastries on demand?”

“Stuck here with me?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Frankie said. “It’s what I wanted all along.”