The Orange Ribbons of Yesterday

Arthur sat in Eleanor's favorite armchair, surrounded by sixty years of accumulated treasures. His hands trembled slightly as they rested on his knees—just as they had when he'd first held Eleanor's hand at the town dance in 1958. She'd left him three weeks ago, after a battle with cancer that she'd faced with characteristic grace and the occasional profanity.

"You always were too organized, Ellie," Arthur murmured, sorting through boxes labeled with her meticulous script. Then he found it—a small velvet pouch tucked inside her jewelry box, not with the pearls and brooches she'd worn to church, but hidden beneath.

Inside lay orange hair ribbons. Bright, unabashedly orange ribbons, the kind a rebellious teenager might wear, not a woman who'd spent decades teaching Sunday school and hosting garden club meetings. Arthur laughed, a sound that surprised him with its bitterness and its joy.

He remembered now. 1953. The day they'd met at the county fair when he was seventeen and she was sixteen, her hair—then a brilliant copper he'd later watch fade to silver—pulled back with these very ribbons. She'd been throwing pennies into a fountain, making wishes she'd never tell him.

"What are you wishing for?" he'd asked, corny and desperate.

She'd looked at him with eyes that already held centuries of wisdom. "For a friend who'll stay."

And he had. Through seven moves, three children, the loss of their son in Vietnam, the quiet devastations of aging bodies and fading memories. He'd held her hand through hip replacements and heart surgeries. They'd sat on porches watching sunsets turn the sky orange—her favorite color, the color of adventure and change and the unexpected.

Arthur realized now that she'd never stopped being that girl in the orange ribbons. The proper exterior had been necessary—society demanded it of women born in 1937—but inside, she'd kept her wildness. These ribbons were her legacy to him: permission to be unapologetically himself, even at eighty-two.

He tied one ribbon around his wrist. Tomorrow, he'd tell their granddaughter about the secret orange-haired rebel who'd been her grandmother. Tonight, he'd sit in Eleanor's chair and watch the orange sunset alone, feeling lucky that after all these years, he'd finally truly know his best friend.