Bobby glanced over at Ellen, he took her hand in his rougher calloused one, and squeezed it gently. His heart beat faster, if you could say that and his head raced with thoughts of her.

He saw them standing on the dock in Michigan hand in hand their feet gently stirring the water as he tried to teach her to fish.

She looked in his deep green eyes and saw the same fear that echoed in her own. She saw the confusion and the pain.

She saw them in the kitchen of Bobby's house, she baked pie and he told her stories from long ago. She remembered pulling the pie out of the oven and swatting his hands away as he tried to cut a slice. She remembered the sound of his voice in her ear as he swung her around in that kitchen; and his laughter that lifted her soul.

Bobby looked from Ellen to the path ahead of them, his heart clenched, the choice ahead wasn't as simple as pulling her into a long kiss. That had always been so simple

Bobby remembered holding Ellen's hand on their long walk on the road that led to the roadhouse. He remembered being so nervous that his hand just about slipped out of hers. He remembered standing in front of the road house and getting down on one knee. The box in his pocket a bit heaver than it looked.

Ellen gave a sideways glance to Bobby and thought the same question he did. What would she pick? What would he?

She looked at his soft eyes and everything in her screamed yes! She felt the satin on her skin again from the beige dress she wore at the altar. She still saw her daughter Jo standing their looking so happy to have Bobby in her life. She remembered the feel of his lips against hers like it was the first time he kissed her.

Bobby thought again of the choice he was about to make, it almost seemed like the hardest he ever had, and he'd had a hell of a lot.

He still saw her tears fall against the floor with soft thumps. He felt her cheek wet with tears under his hands. Her eyes red from crying and her body turned stiff against him. Her broken heart opened for him to see. His guilt had piled up. And yet somehow they made it through even that.

Ellen took a step forward toward the ever growing light. Yet Bobby stayed where he was. She tugged on the hand she held, "Bobby" she whispered tenderly.

El, the name he called her when she cried. When he kissed her softly and when she was worrying about Jo. El, what he whispered when she found out she was pregnant again. When she saw the + staring her in the face. El, the name she heard, when she curled against his safe body as the nightmares came.

Bobby looked at El, even though he was reluctant to go he knew that whatever she choose he would too, just to be with her.

Her soft laugh as they sat on their porch swing. Her voice, which broke through and saved him of so many distant memories. Her graying hair soft against his cheek when he lay beside her. Their wrinkled hands together as they saw Jo come up the stairs with her round full belly. Clara held her elbow gently as she always did with her older sister.

Ellen looked behind her as if she could see the world she had left behind. And for a moment she did.

Jo and Clara held each other sobbing as their babies laid flowers on the freshly turned earth. Jo reached down and placed a hand on Ellen's name carved in marble.

"Bobby?" Bobby took El's hand again and they walked off into the light.