The anniversary

Monsieur Arcault has cut white and purple lilac blossom from the garden. On the same morning each April, he takes his secateurs from the kitchen drawer, walks to the end of the potager and cuts an armful of flowery boughs, each one heavy with colour and heady spring scent.

He trims them, binds them with green string then presents them to Louise, his wife.

He feels, he says, as though they’ve been together forever. That they know each other so well they are now one and the same.

“Talking to her is like having a conversation with myself, ” he tells me. “All that has ever had to be said has been said and there is little left I can tell her that she doesn’t already know.”

They’ve shared sad times and disappointments; lived through the other’s pain as if it was their own. But there has always been love, even when they’ve each made mistakes, done things that has made loving the other the hardest thing in the world.

“Every love affair is exceptional,” he says as he ties the lilacs, “but everyone wants the same: to love and to be loved.”

Monsieur Arcault thinks of his wife. His smile says more than words ever could.