Dawn started to get more serious headaches and it was obvious that she should go to Greenestown and let the doctors check her.
But it was also a fact that she would be put under the knife at once if her tumour had grown.
The last evening she was home we tried to make real special.
She had been in the hills to say goodbye to her pinguin and it was clear to me she had cried a lot.
Her face was all red and swollen as it always was when she had been spending too much time outside.
But still I found her adorable in a beautiful homemade silkdress matching the colors of her eyes.
I was wearing a suit for the first time for more than a year.
We exchanged presents: I gave her the first bouquet of roses she had ever got. They only lasted for a few hours but she was so happy.
She had been knitting my present, a pair of…pinguins.
While we were eating she caressed my hand: “Jerry if something happen to me, will you take care of my pinguin please?”
“Nothing will happen to you!” I said.
“Jerry…Please, give me a serious answer. It is important.”
“Of course I will!” I said (and thought that it would be let out in the snow with its kin’s if I had something to say. God, I am such a bastard)
When it was time to say goodnight Dawn asked me if I wanted to stay.
What happened next was in a way so natural and yet I wonder if I should have refused.
She was so beautiful and so fragile and I felt for the first time real tenderness and humbleness sharing this special moment with a women.
I woke up in the night because she was sitting on the bedside crying over her pinguin.
When she was back sleeping in my arms again I was thinking that if she mentioned that bird one more time I would grow feathers!
The next day I followed her to the boat and kissed her goodbye.
It was the very same moment the boat left I realized that I loved her.
