BLUE

     He's been in the hospital for over a week. When she visits him, she can only see his milky blue eyes. The rest of his face is covered with a puffing oxygen mask. She sits next to him, holding his bony hand covered in skin that resembles wrinkled yellow plastic wrap. She trains her eyes at the tiled floor and tries not to notice.

     That evening at dinner, she sits across from an empty chair. Her eyes fill with tears as she stares at it, and she doesn't know what to do.

     She whispers, "He's going to die."

     As soon as the testing words leave her parched lips, tears burn down her cheeks. She stands on shaky legs and flees the house. She returns later, more composed, but reeking of the nicotine that sustains her.

     She remembers how she had been swept off her feet by a clear blue-eyed, tattooed paratrooper from the 82^nd Airborne. She was restless sixteen year old with long, shiny hair and long, spindly legs. They married young, so that she could escape from her home and her parents who made her everything but happy.

     He grew a beard and bought a van and finally got a steady job as a commercial insulator to support his young family. They had their share of troubles. They fought plenty. But somehow they always made ends meet.  

     She saw him age, his lungs growing holes that couldn't be mended with the needle and thread she used to mend his worst socks. She saw him grow weak, undergoing operation after operation. 

     Now, sitting beside him, she sees the moment he realizes he will not live to see his grandson’s birth. She sees his eyes dim and close. Now the only place she will see the cerulean of his eyes is in the skies.