She can see – and so can he. There is no chance for denial now. Her heart is breaking at the sight of it. As though he has waited for her to yield to her love.

From his shattered place on the ground he has now been raised by her tender attentions. Smiling out of his haze as her delicate but direct hands go about their routine of care. As she allows her long black hair to fall over him.

Now he is a child – looking up in awe at the floating vision of grace before him. In his weary, aching repose she is the angel come to visit him. And the sweetness has him weeping.

Then she washes his tears with her own – and together they make a sea of euphoria, despair and acceptance.

She is kneeling at the altar of his finality, holding his bony, shivering hands in hers. With a strength that barely registers, he clings onto her. Channelling adoration through his arthritic fingers.

For a minute or two the beauty of it is so intense – like an overdose – that neither can breathe; and they are suspended in the exquisite space where everything is nothing and all is forgiven.

She lays her head upon his knees and he runs his fingers through her hair. Now he loves her utterly. Feels like he could melt away.

This is how she comes to understand the aspect of love that we might best call divine. By allowing him to love her without fear or temperance.

In her surrender, his also.

And in surrender, ecstasy.

Healing.

Returning.