When we are old.

Now, I want nothing more than to lie on your shoulder and to tell you how all of this makes me feel, and to hear what you think about it. If we cannot stay together, I will be in the same home as you, and we will be together. I will touch your greyed temples and tell you that you look every bit as beautiful as you did before any of this, even if you can't speak back, even if your eyes are rheumy and you do nothing more than dribble food back at me.

I feel bad eating when she cannot. I feel massively fat when she weighs six stones and four pounds, and needs so much more weight on her. My Mum said she used to be big, and meticulous in her house, and the terrible thing is that you can see it in the habit she has of slowly stroking the green velvet, searching for something in the routine, and how she moves tissues into her sleeve, painstakingly tiny movements over purple veins. I feel so much.