Martha had fought all day against a headache so horrid it felt as if it might split her skull in two, yet, it wasn’t important: the spinning of the room, the fever, the pain in every muscle and bone… it would all be over soon. They were both so familiar with Death, they knew it was coming.
“Tom…” a weak voice whispered from the bed.
“Yes my dear?”
“I… want you to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
Thomas brushed his hand over her curly hair, so red, so colorful in contrast to her almost blue lips and pale grey skin. He lay next to her on the bed and she went on:
“When… you have the desire to get married again, you—“
“I will not get married again.”
A smile appeared on her face at these words. Despite being surrounded by kin and servants, Thomas was so close that this conversation was only theirs. Through the bed sheets, Martha could feel the regular and strong pulse of his heart and the idea of soon being responsible for its breaking devastated her.
“Of course you will, Tom… I did. And it was the best decision of my existence.”
Clouds suddenly blurred her vision, but she could feel tears anyways: his falling hot on her cold skin. Oh how she wished he wouldn’t cry!
“When you want to remarry…”
“Patty—"
“When it happens,” she continued, one hand caressing Thomas’s wet cheek, the other pressed against his lips by his clenched fingers for a last kiss, “… promise me to be wise in the choice of the Lady. Not for you, but…” she paused once more, trying to catch what breath she could, “but for our girls. I don’t want them to be under the heel of a neglectful and unkind stepmother… I don’t want them to go through what I went through…”
Drained of all her strength, she sighed quietly under his weight. But Martha didn’t care, her Thomas was with her. What else could matter?
“So… just promise me to be careful in your decision, my love.”
He just had to say it.
Three words and she would go peacefully.
“I promise you…” he started and it was enough for her, but he continued, “I shall not remarry.”
A mistake. No, he couldn’t have said such a thing, she just wasn’t hearing properly because of her weakness.
“I promise you I will never marry again,” he repeated, his voice trembling but louder this time, even as he read the confusion in her hazel eyes.
“Why?” she asked breathlessly.
“Because I’m selfish. Because I want you to be the only woman to wear my name. Because you are irreplaceable.”
“It is only your grief speaking, listen to reason…”
“You are my one and only wife, until my last day. I promise.” In a last embrace Thomas held her, carefully, settling his cheek against hers, his lips scant centimeters from the shell of his wife’s ear, and then whispered - cried - begged - into it: “Please my love… take me with you…”
But she was already far away.
“Thomas—“
Martha said nothing more.
It wasn’t that bad she thought - to die here and now, in this house, in this room, in the arms of this man, and his name as her last word.

She could rest now.