She’s sitting next to me. The windows are rolled down and the wind is flowing through her hair. My arm is around her, her left hand is resting on the inside of my right thigh.  It’s the late afternoon of a brilliant summer day.  I’m driving on a remote patch of state highway.  Everything is green and warm.

A moment later we’re waking up with sunlight streaming through the window shades.  We’re lying on our right sides and my left arm is wrapped around her waist. My head is buried in her brown hair that’s spread across her pillow.

Then we’re driving down another county highway.  It’s snowing, big flakes, starting to come down hard, the March landscape a dreary mosaic of grays and browns.  She’s looking out her window, her eyes big and sad.  I’m driving, we’re headed for home, the only sounds the blowing of the defroster, the humming of the tires on the pavement, and the echo of the neurologist’s words in our heads.

She’ll be there again tonight, I think to myself.  Everything else can change, the rest of the world can crumble and fall apart, but come the night, come the dark, she’ll be there, like she is every night, and together we’ll navigate the landscape of dreams, and for a few hours wrap ourselves in each other, beyond the reach of the cold and unfeeling grip of disease.