Adagio

As the soft B sounded off the first violins playing Barber's Adagio, she breathed in. The moment would come for the cello to bring the melody a stronger, more solemn tone. On her mind, the smell of his hair on the day he boarded the army's C47 bound to Honolulu and the tears she forced herself not to shed in that unplanned goodbye on the first days of the war.

(image: @freewriters)

The music swayed sadly and she couldn't help but let the tears she kept through the years roll silently down her face. It took them over a decade to find his body in an island with an unpronounceable name, lost, in the middle of the Pacific. Inside an ammo box, next to his body, they had found a letter with her name on it:

"My dear Louise, love of my life. I am writing this, that will be my last letter to you, as we are surrounded and don't expect to last until daybreak. Just know that my last thoughts are of you and our unborn child. If it turns out to be a boy, name him after me.
All my love, Charles"

The crowd let out a roaring applause as the music ended and Charlie, her Charlie, held his cello upright and bowed. "Your father would have been proud" - she thought, as she stood and clapped her hands - "he would have been so proud"...

12.01.25 - @hefestus