The phone call came in the early hours.

"Hello, is that Mrs Lawrence?"

"Hello, hello - is that the hospital? Is that Sister? This is Sally Chambers, her daughter, how is my Dad?"

"Mrs Chambers, we think that you and Mrs Lawrence might want to visit Mr Lawrence."

"Oh, oh... Is Daddy worse?"

"Well, Doctor thinks you and Mrs Lawrence might like to be here. If you can. Soon"

"Yes. Yes... we will be there as soon as we can. Thank you, Sister."

Sally took a deep breath; she had been dreading that phone call.

She hurried to her mother who was already dressing.

"Mummy, it was..."

"Yes, yes dear, I know who it was. I must go to him."

Sally's eyes prickled with tears as she saw her mother dressing in her best dress, applying a little powder to her cheeks from her old and treasured compact, a brush of pale lipstick, a hint of her father's favourite perfume to her throat and wrists.

"Mother, we must hurry - they said to come soon."

"Sally I must look nice for him. It's quite all right. He will wait for me. Please don't fret."

Sally wondered at her mother. She knew and her mother knew that her father was deeply sedated. That he would never waken. That he would never see her again. And yet she was taking this time when time was now so short. She felt a flash of irritation. Why were old people so STUBBORN?

Having at last adjusted her (now dreadfully out-of-date) hat her mother was finally ready. Sally took her by the arm, helped support her arthritically painful walk, and guided her out of the house, locking the door behind her. She eased her mother into the passenger seat of her car.

She drove through the quiet streets, hushed as though respectful of the need for their journey at this dark hour. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her mother fumbling with the clasp of her handbag, saw the pale envelope as her mother reassured herself that it was there.

"Mother, I don't know how to say this. I have your wedding anniversary card in my handbag too. This is yours and Daddy's 60th... I wondered... well... I don't want to hurt you or Da..." She stopped, bit her lip as she remembered that she could never again hurt her father.

"You are a very dear and thoughtful girl, Sally, but you won't hurt either of us. Of course you must give it to him. He will be so hurt if he thinks you haven't remembered."

Sally feared that the stress and heartbreak of her father's illness had finally broken her mother's mind. Again she felt the flare of anger. Why wouldn't her mother accept that her father would never know hurt again. That he was suspended from pain only by the most deeply reaching medication. Medication intended to ease him from the agony of the here, to the relief of the hereafter.

"You know, Sally, I can still see him, 60 years ago today - well 60 years ago at 10 o'clock anyway. He was so pale and nervous as he waited for me at the altar. I was wearing my veil down of course, as a modest bride should, and he couldn't see me as I smiled at him. But his face! The relief that I had actually come to him. To be married to him. As if I could NOT have come to him. Sally, your father and I have had the most wonderfully happy marriage. I wouldn't change a single day of it. Well perhaps the odd day when I had to be angry with him over something totally unimportant! But you have to do don't you? You have to be mad at your man sometimes don't you?"

"Your father was always romantic. And it was Daddy who wanted us to be married today, Valentine's Day, 60 years ago. Every year, every single year except for when he was a prisoner in the war, and even then when he came home to me he gave me the Valentine's Wishes he'd made when he was away. Just little scraps of paper. But always something. And every year since then we have made our own Wishes for each other. We didn't buy the cards from shops. They couldn't say what we wanted to say."

"I have my Wish with me now you know. He will love it. He always does."

Sally swallowed hard. Any more of this and she would either scream out loud, or yell at her mother and tell her did she know her Dad was unconscious, in a coma, dying. She felt a chill inside as she wondered how she would cope with her mother looking down on the shrunken, wasted frame of the man she had loved and who would soon leave her. How would her mother cope - afterwards?

They were able to park in a disabled slot right in front of the main visitors' entrance and as Sally helped her mother out of the car, a porter unlocked the doors.

She turned to the porter - "Is there a wheelchair please for my mother. She is very arthritic."

"No, no, Sally. No, I do NOT want a wheelchair. I shall walk to him just as I did before. Just give me your arm, as my own father did as he walked me down the aisle. I must walk to him."

Sally wanted to run, to rush to her father's side, to be with him, to not let him be alone but she knew it was pointless to protest. Her mother was so stubborn when she wanted to be. It had taken them well over an hour since the phone call. She was sure they were now too late.

She took her mother's arm in her own and they slowly walked the long quiet corridor, took the lift. Again the halting walk.

The side ward was dimly lit. The covered figure still wore the oxygen mask. She felt relief for her mother; they had not been too late.

Her mother bent and awkwardly kissed her husband's cheek, the oxygen mask hissing softly. "I am here, Charles" was all that she said.

Two heavy, padded, hospital visitors' chairs lined the wall, and Sally struggled to move one to the side of the bed for her mother.

"It's quite alright, Sally. Leave it there by the wall. It will give your father more space around him."

The two women sat and waited, a wife and a daughter. The wife calm, composed, her eyes free from tears and frequently looking at the face of the man she loved. The daughter, restless, anxious, her heart full but not yet spilling out the grief within her.

Sally fidgeted and paced the room, looked on the shelves of the bedside cabinet, read the various 'Get Well' cards, pulled open the drawer and found it empty except for her fathers toilet items. His old shaving brush and razor. His preferred brand of soap and toothpaste. His toothbrush. She almost broke into sobs at the sight of the personal items, used daily for God only knew how many years.