Anniversary (/r/rational submission)

I brushed my thumb against the cover of the book, feeling the felt. Inhaled deeply. Imagine, if you'd be so kind, the smell of dusty age that I'm informed such books can have, and the weight of history and emotion pressing down from it. I rely on everyone else for things like that; no sense of smell due to a quirk of birth, and not really into the tangible illusions that some of my friends swear by.

The bookmark was about two thirds of the way through the book, a sentence of indecipherable French sandwiched between Yiddish-encoded-as-German. The hand, that is, the writer's hand changed at that point. Stronger, neater, steadier.

Somehow, I didn't startle when the arms came around my shoulders, and I noticed that the lights had brightened. "It's early for you, isn't it?" I looked up from the book, leaning back into the hug, and my eyes caught the clock. Seven thirty in early May explained the light; I had lost track of time, let the end of night flow into the day.

"Good morning, dear." Her arms came around my chest as I slowly relaxed into her. There wasn't anything metaphysical about it, I wasn't anymore home or safe than I had been a moment ago, but the affection was good. "Scrub my back?"

I opened my eyes again, waving vaguely at the book resting in the lap of my robe. "Wanted to fight the right spot. Stupid of me, it's a gift for you, anyway." I raised it in her direction, and added, as her hands closed around it, "Published 1952, the only surviving original. All due care." I heard the pages rustle, and she put it down carefully a moment later. "Kind of on the nose, it's from the French cousins, the right-wing ones. They didn't even speak to the Polish branch back in the day, you know."

I could feel her shrug. "They think I didn't know what I was getting into when I asked you to marry me. I know. Maybe they were right." She snorted softly, nose in my hair, evading the tangent I halfheartedly had tried to distract her with, another reason to fall in love with her all over again, that she saw through me and held me close anyway, or maybe because of it. "I can read a calendar too, you know." And then, a seeming non-sequitor.

"My period didn't come yesterday." I raised my head, turning, and met her eyes. There was a warm seriousness there, a reminder that it hadn't come last month. "I should hope I know what the twenty-seventh of Nisan means." And she was smiling, a smile I remembered from our wedding day, the smile I hoped I'd see on her face for eighty and more years to come. "Scrub my back, love, and I'll scrub yours."

Not 'we won't let it happen here', or 'never again'. I stood, kissing her hand, and let her lead me back. A child, a wife, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. It was a type of defiance in its own right. It was a life full of love, and the will to live it until the end.

It would have to do.