It was difficult to know who was the elder of the two; they both had white hair, they both moved slowly, he perhaps a bit more slowly than she, so for purposes of telling the tale, I will say that he was the elder.
It doesn't really matter, and yet it does. Every detail of life matters.
Slow motion. Plastic bag, black plums, one at a time, hands shaking.
The slow motion of advanced age.
Confusion, mounting. "Let me..." he said, but he didn't finish: she kept trying to open the plastic bag, an act that can defy the agility of the youngest hands at times.
"Let me....hold....the bag!"
He was softly insistent.
It seemed to take forever for that message to reach her brain; she kept trying to open the bag, hands shaking, head bobbing, legs wrapped in thick stockings, a threadbare green sweater draped over her rounded shoulders, her hair wispy white, surrounding her face like so many tiny feathers.
He tried again. "Let...me...hold...the bag."
Their eyes met and it was as if the world stood still, for them and for me as the observer of this moment. For in that moment, she knew again, after all those many years, that yes, he loved her.
She let him open and hold the bag as she placed one, two, three, four shiny black plums into it.
It took both of them to work the twist tie to close the bag. And then, the best part:
His were on the handle of the shopping cart, and just before he pushed off for a very long journey to retrieve the other things they needed in the store, her soft, deeply veined hands covered his; he looked into her eyes and there it was again, right out in the open, for all the world to see: love.....so tender it made me cry.
