Last goodbyes

She couldn't utter a word. Laying in her hospital bed, she could see, around her, all of her family was there.
He wouldn't hear. So she'll have to speak up, louder, and make him confortably read her lips while talking, so that either reading her lips, or hearing her distant voice, he could make out her words...

He stepped forward, and came to hold her hand.
She kissed his cheek gently, as she had been doing over the last fifty years.
- You came... - she whispered, holding her last breath. He moved closer and smiled. She let her head slide back, reconforted- you came here... today- He nodded.
- Today, my darling, after so many years.
She could feel the wedding ring aching at the compass of her resisting blood pressure. He held her hand. She was trembling. Her skin was tight yet wrinkled.
-I'm here, my dear- she whispered- I'm here for as long as it takes.
With all this memories. Of you and me. Of a lifetime.
He came closer to hear her.
-I'm here- he said, and kissed her forehead.
- This time it's another war, that will keep us apart. But it wasn't for the shooting across the vast fields of Andalucia... - she recovered small flashes of memory- democracy. You remember that day?

He nodded, again, in silence.

-It was a rainy day and Alfonsito had died during childbirth. The disorden in our attic. That smell of wet wood. The dust in your shoes, my darling, for as long as my memory recalls...
She stopped.
-Where are the pills, my dear? Did you forget to take them?
He sat close, and gently put his hands over her eyes and said: No pills today, Antonia.
- It's cold again. Did you forget to close the top window?

At the sides of the room, the four children of the couple held their tears. It was the last goodbye.

- I love you!- she cried, and while he hug her intensely, her heart stopped beating.