(Many thanks to Northlander for the final paragraph, and to Dawnj for editing and smiles!)
*
Hal Danvers stood on the old stone bridge. It had taken him quite some time to cover all the distance from his home to the road and on to the river, and he sat down on the seat of his Zimmer frame, panting.
His son, his only child, had come over for Christmas with his wife and children, and they had bought a Christmas tree. It stood in the living room, decorated with his old collections of birds and bells, and the contents of four boxes of rather ugly violet baubles they'd bought at a nearby supermarket. The star he'd used all those years had been found wanting, so the tree was crowned with a red tree topper that seemed an aggressively sharp object to him - not in the spirit of Christmas at all.
Karen and he had never had that big a tree in their house. They preferred a small one, with real candles, and Karen had ritually placed the two white doves on the top branch every year.
Now that Karen was gone, he'd not wanted to have one any more, but the children didn't like the idea much and he had let them do as they pleased. It stood in the living room complete with streamers and electric lights. His grandchildren had done most of the decorating. The doves sat somewhere on a lower branch and they had broken a bell. Oh well, their intentions were good, and it was lovely not have to spend Christmas alone.
The two children were busily playing in the living room and his son Geoff and Kathy, his daughter-in-law, were upstairs unpacking clothes and making beds. He had gone to his study when a howl came from the living room. He went there immediately. The children's play had evolved into a violent quarrel, and this had resulted in an accident involving the tree. They had broken two baubles, and they had knocked the head off of one of the doves.
After having ended the hostilities he had gone down on his knees with the aid of the couch and picked up the head; he could only just see it, but his fingers had managed to get it off the floor. When he had straightened himself again with some difficulty he'd opened the clip the birds were fastened to. He'd gone to the corridor and put the pieces into his overcoat pocket.
When he had left the house he had felt a sudden pain across his chest. It must have been the difference in temperature, he thought.
It was cold. His coat was warm enough but his gloves weren't - even so, he didn't notice the cold too much. The walk to the summit of the bridge had taken a lot of energy and he felt very hot. He felt the doves through the material of his coat. He couldn't bear the idea that they'd go into the dustbin to end up covered in the remains of other people's Christmas dinners. They had always been so important to him. Karen...
Karen had loved the doves, too. She had put them in the tree the very first night they'd spent together. She had done so on Christmas Eve ever since and she'd taken them down every January the sixth. He missed her terribly. She'd fallen ill early in spring, and he had nursed her as well as he could; she wouldn't have anyone else. She had a wasting disease and he had seen her deteriorate day by day; eventually she had died in his arms, a shadow of her former self. When she had seen his dismay it was she who'd tried to comfort him. On the day she died she had been unconscious most of the time. Only once had she opened her eyes; she had smiled at him through her pain and told him to take good care of himself. He had managed to keep himself in hand then, but when she'd died in his arms he had given in to his misery. He had been absolutely inconsolable.
Now only a kind of dull pain remained, together with an empty feeling of loneliness. His son's family was nice enough but they were no substitute for Karen. He stared into the water. When she had been with him for a couple of months they had stood here together playing Pooh-sticks. It had been great fun; they had been noticed by some unimaginative passers-by who obviously thought they must have been out of their minds.
Karen had always been fond of simple things. One warm morning, when it was just getting light, she had woken him up to listen to the dawn chorus coming in through their bedroom window. She had put a finger on her lips. They used to sleep naked, and they lay like spoons, with his arm around her, and she had lifted a leg over his and found his cock, and they had made love very slowly and sweetly - listening to how the birds celebrated the bright new day, in complete agreement with their joy. He still saw her smile that morning in his mind's eyes. Karen, oh Karen!
He looked away from the water for a moment and took off his gloves. He experienced the pain in his chest anew - it was not a good idea for an old man to go tramping up bridges in this temperature, he thought. But it quickly subsided again.
He felt in his pocket and found the doves. He could take them out easily; the little head gave him more trouble. His fingers were stiff and a little rheumatic, and the cold didn't help.
When he had found both parts he held them in his hand and looked at them a little sadly. Once he'd thrown them into the river, the current would break them entirely to little pieces, and they would be ground and polished. The iron was a little rusty already; the water would surely take care of that. He nodded to himself. He hoped they would reach the sea, eventually; they would at least not end their days ignominiously on a garbage belt.