Free A Vow to Cherish by Deborah Raney Page B

I…I love you, John. I love you so much…so very much. And I know with all my heart that you love me, but I’m terrified our love won’t survive this…this monster!” Her voice rose a tremulous octave and she grabbed tufts of hair at the side of her head and yanked. “I feel…possessed! I’ve never felt so out of control like this before. It terrifies me! Oh, John, I’m so scared.”
    “Shh, shh…” He held her, stroking her hair until she calmed down. And they held each other that way, praying together, drawing strength and comfort from the physical embrace and from the presence of the God they knew and trusted, even though they didn’t understand.
    As the fire in the hearth waned, their embrace turned to passion. They drank each other in, making love unhurriedly, but with fervid insistence…with sweet familiarity.
    Afterward, John brought a quilt and pillows from their bed. He stoked the fire, and they slept on the floor in front of the hearth until the harsh light of morning flooded their pallet, and the embers grew as cold as the reality they woke to face.

Chapter Nine
    J ohn stood at the fireplace gazing into the fading embers of the first fire of autumn. One by one, the sparks grew faint and died. It seemed rife with symbolism.
    Dr. Gallia’s words the previous spring had proven prophetic. As the months passed, John had watched Ellen fade before his eyes. Her memory losses became more frequent and more glaring with every week that passed.
    Ellen had always loved to cook, but now, most days she could no longer remember even the simple recipes she’d made from scratch since she was a young girl growing up on the farm.
    She would try to tell John about a phone call and come up completely blank. She could tell him someone had called, and that it was important, but she couldn’t remember what the message was about, or whether it was a man or a woman she’d spoken to. She tried writing down phone messages, but too often the jumbled scribblings on the notepad failed to give John—or Ellen—a clue about the call. Sometimes he wondered if she was remembering a call from last week—or worse, if the calls were all in her imagination.
    After missing half a dozen important calls, John finally bought an answering machine. But he couldn’t make Ellen understand that she should wait to see who was calling and then decide whether to answer the call. The first time John called, Ellen answered on the second ring.
    “Ellen.” He tried to keep the impatience from his voice. “I thought you were going to wait and let the machine pick up.”
    “But it’s you, John. Why did you call if you didn’t want to talk to me?”
    “But what if it hadn’t been me? That’s the whole point,” he explained patiently, “so you can let the machine take the call after you find out if it’s me or not.”
    “But…but it is you,” she stuttered.
    He laughed in spite of his frustration, and tried to explain it to her again.
    “But what if one of the kids tries to call, John?”
    “You can pick up if you recognize their voice, Ellen.”
    “But…I won’t know it’s them unless I pick up.”
    “Yes, you will, Ellen. Don’t you understand how an answering machine works?” He felt his blood pressure rising. “It’s like your voice mail at work.”
    “What do you want for dinner?”
    He sighed. She’d taken to changing the subject whenever she got frustrated. It was a challenge not to let his exasperation match hers. An answering machine was apparently too confusing and complicated for her. He let it drop.
    “We could eat out,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to call someone to go out with us?”
    “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that. We could have those people…you know…those people from church…”
    “What people?”
    “You know. The ones we like so well.”
    “Rob and Cathy?” Lately the names of even her closest friends seemed to escape her, and though she could usually conjure them up eventually,