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He'd give anything just to be young again.
He can't help it, it's a fickle foolish thought that first really occurred to him as he watched you move around the kitchen, red floral tea towel slung over your shoulder and cloth in hand grumbling and complaining animatedly about this and that, Beverly Keane mostly, gesturing wildly setting small little soap suds into fluttering motion through the air.
It's a fool's dream and there's lots of dreaming to be done in a place like Crockett; a small town past its glory, weathered wood and sea winds a dog-eared backdrop for raging storms and calm banality alike, but still he likes to imagine sometimes what it would be like outside of this unspoken arrangement, this unlikely friendship you've made over English tea and library books that developed somehow into you cleaning and cooking breakfast and picking up the slack when he's too tired or just too old .
Truth is, to you, John Pruitt is not a hard man to like. The Monsignor is cheeky and mischievous and wonderfully sharp as a tack. He's playful with his friendship, all dry sarcasm and teasing taunts and to your absolute delight you find he's also quite the gossip. You'll never tire of hearing about the latest diocese drama or which of the mainland's seminarians he's heard won't make the cut . "God's own telenovela." You call it and his eyes sparkle each time with the fun of it
His life, albeit quiet, has been just as interesting and full as he is, sports and trivia, memories and knowledge, and how blessed you are in this small place of few delights that he shares some of that with you.
He's had a life full of music and song and he hums his favorite tunes often enough that you pick them up too then he's so excited to play them for you just so you can hear the way they're supposed to sound.
You enjoy absolutely every minute of the time that you have with him and despite his worries to the contrary it is always a pleasure; "Don't forget to take your pills." and "Drink your tea before it's cold." then late nights with old movies and warm afternoon naps.
The mid day naps are your favorite, small snoozes on his sofa, drowsy dozes in front of the tv. Warm blankets and no commitments, just you and he and the stillness of time. Naps where he puts his arm around your shoulder and sometimes pulls you close against him, soft kisses pressed into your hair and then finally,
finally.
when you kiss him on the mouth.
It's only once. It's enough.
When with soft lips moving over his you take him to bed.
His touch is gentle and hesitant, thumbs chasing small patterns across your ribs as you lay him down on his quilted blankets, your own hands caressing his cheeks before moving southward and delving beneath fabric to all those places, those wonderful forbidden places, you've never been allowed; peppering kisses into his beard and down his throat as he closes his eyes for fear of weeping.
He traces the lines of your body, collarbone to navel, with inquisitive delicate fingertips and pulls at the curve of your hips with wide open palms. He digs his fingers into the flesh of your thighs and drags short neat nails down your stomach and as you ease yourself down upon him he pushes up to meet you, hard and deep, and he looks at you with such soft eyes, so full of awe, so full of tears.
His expression will stay with you long after tonight, long after the sheets are straightened and the collar fixed; his gasp of disbelief when he makes you moan, with the scratch of his beard across your breast and the warm explorations of his mouth, evidence you offer him gladly of your pleasure. Praise for the way he moves beneath you, slow and easy.
His hands stutter against your flesh when you sigh "John" through quivering reddened lips and as your thighs begin to tremble he calls you "Sweetheart", calls you heavenly.
When he whispers your name with some final reverent urgency and grasps your hips tight in shaky yet still strong hands you almost cry yourself; the beauty of it.
After that comes soft touches, blown out smiles and tangled limbs.
"Am I dead?" He asks hoarsely and you both laugh like children until sleep takes you.
Then.
Then.
Then too soon comes the illness, the incident, the doctor and emergency ferry and sterile stark hospital walls.
Now his hands tremor for different reasons and he can't remember the names of local children or any of those old movies. He loses his appetite and his train of thought; he flits from one notion to another often never completing any.
You make his tea and fold his laundry, "Don't forget to take your pills." and "Drink your tea before it's cold."
You never talk about it. It. What is there to say? Do you remember? That one time? When I loved you?
Over the next year the decline is fast, as you're all warned it could be, and the tears come along with the nightmares just as the storms come in from the sea. Now in his bedroom he calls for his mother and there's nothing you can do but hold him, though only on the days that he'll allow you, and you feel it, him slipping away, as you lose a little more of him with each sunrise.
Sometimes when you bring him breakfast, throwing open the curtains to let in the soft forgiving morning light, you'll hum a tune he thinks he's heard before and you'll tell him it's an old love song. He'll join you just long enough before he loses the melody and he'll run his fingers over a red floral tea towel that catches the crumbs from his toast.
Now sometimes when he looks at you you wonder whether he remembers you at all.
The trip is a bad Idea and you'd fought it. It's too dangerous, you'd shouted to anyone who'd listen; He's too old, He's too frail and he hates it, hates it, hates it.
You'd fought with him and you'd fought with Bev and he thinks you might have fought Jerusalem if you were able.
In the end it doesn't matter.
The money is raised and the journey booked so you help him pack with wet eyes and snuffling nose and stuff little pieces of paper with your scribbled name and number all among his belongings; Remember me hidden in his wallet, in each pair of trousers, in the breast pockets of each shirt and overcoat.
At the dock there's a crowd but you're the only one to cry then you kiss him on the mouth in front of Bev and God and everyone and you don't even blush.
He smiles, the way one might when they see some kind of wonder, or perhaps when they hear the tune of their long lost favorite song and you see a glimpse of him and you think for a brief second he might have seen you too.
Then he boards the ferry, bag in hand, and you watch him sail away to nothingness, staying on the shoreline into the evening long after the water has stilled and the moon shines big and bright and you let the sea wind whip through your hair and chill your cheeks, all your dog-eared edges.
In the morning you won't make breakfast.
Underneath it all, down to the truth of it, Monsignor Pruitt is glad to be leaving because he's not sure he can stomach much more. People, you, witnessing his slow and painful passing. His cruel and disgraceful demise. So he packs it all away with the memory he keeps of you, one he remembers anew each morning of when you'd both been warm and tender, and he takes one last look at Crockett Island and lets the Belle and the water take him.
He'd give anything just to be young again.