I was thinking of two moons, and two lovers, and wrapped in one another’s endless dreams.

Peter Bruun

Reigniting a high school flame at a reunion – could there be a more romantic start to a later-in-life love story? Six decades before, Clarinda had loved Tom from afar, but the smart, charismatic athlete barely noticed the clever, bookish girl. He slipped into her history, and she moved forward. Fifty-five years later, the man of her dreams reappeared at their high school reunion, and sparks flew over barbecue. Clarinda’s fairy tale began when Tom moved to her city and then into her home, not long after. Their love was comfortable and natural; they fit snugly together. But Clarinda sensed something was wrong. Tom’s sense of time was off, his memory spotty. The career pilot and lifelong sailor had lost his sense of direction. A hard conversation and a few appointments later, their creeping dread took form: Alzheimer’s. Her perfect, beautiful man was slipping away, and she’d only just started her journey with him. In time he was more disease than Tom, but even the merciless scourge of dementia could not erase his most primal urge, rooted in their long-simmering love: to care for her, however he could.