The Last Day on Earth

The large table was heavily laden with mounds of delicious looking food. The table was set for three with the family’s best china dishes and bowls, and the good silver cutlery that had been a wedding present when Lucy’s grandparents married. A sudden memory of summer mornings spent polishing the silver under her grandmother’s demanding gaze flashed through Lucy’s mind. Lucy sat in the seat her grandmother had always occupied and took a deep breath. Her mouth started salivating immediately and her stomach grumbled loudly.

“This smells delicious, Mum,” Lucy told Liz when she came into the room carrying the last dish from the kitchen.

“Thanks, love, I hope it tastes as good.”

“I don’t even know where to start.” Bill sat down at the head of the table and eyed the table with a gleaming eye.

Once they were all seated, they paused and looked around at each other.

“I feel like we should say something,” Liz said.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” Bill stood up and went to the wine cabinet that had always been out of bounds to Lucy and Claire. He fumbled with the key that was kept hanging next to the cabinet. Lucy had always wondered at her father’s security sensibilities. He carefully pulled out a dusty bottle and placed it on the table in front of Lucy. She eyed it. Penfolds Grange. Expensive.

“Wow, Dad. Going out in style!”

“I bought this the year you were born. I was going to give it to you on your 30^th birthday.”

“Wow, Dad,” Lucy repeated. “I hope it’s not corked,” she added with a grin.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Liz handed him the bottle opener. He wrestled with the cork, and then took an appreciative sniff of the wine. He reached over and went to pour Lucy the first glass.

“Wait, shouldn’t we decant it?” Liz stopped him.

“Too right, love. Where’s the decanter?”

“In here somewhere.” Liz crouched down in front of the crystal cabinet that was full of inherited crystal. Lucy had never bothered to give her parents wine glasses for Christmas -they could stock an antique store with the amount of crystal that had ended up in their house, it had trickled down from various grandparents, great-grandparents and spinster great-aunts.

“Aha!” Liz carefully manoeuvred the decanter from the back of the cabinet and managed not to knock anything else over. “Here we go.”

Lucy watched as her father carefully poured the bottle into the old decanter.

“How long are we meant to wait?” Lucy eyed the wine, and then looked at the food.

“No idea. Liz?” Bill looked over at his wife. Liz just shrugged.

“You can see we got a lot of use out of that decanter. I think Auntie Mildred gave it to us as a wedding present.”

“This is when I’d normally Google the answer.” Lucy looked at the now useless computer that she could half-see through the door and sighed.

“I think it will be fine.” Liz reached for the decanter and poured them all a glass. She held her glass up. Lucy and Bill followed suit.

“To my wonderful husband and my darling daughters and grandsons.” The three of them clinked glasses and muttered cheers and took a sip. The wine danced across her tongue.

Bill coughed, and then held his glass up again.

“I’d like to say something before we eat, if you don’t mind.” Lucy and her mother both nodded. “I don’t know what our world is going to look like tomorrow, or if we’ll be here or not to see it. I hope that we will be, but… well, in case we’re not…

“Liz, you’ve been my rock for almost 35 years. I didn’t think it would be possible, but I love you even more now than I did on our wedding day, and you grow ever more beautiful with each passing year. You’ve inspired me and supported me and I couldn’t have asked for a better wife or partner in life.

“Lucy, I couldn’t be prouder of you. You’ve grown from my little imp into a beautiful young woman. I always knew you had a good head on your shoulders, but how you’ve handled yourself over the past couple of months has really confirmed it in my mind. I am one lucky father to have a daughter like you. And Claire.

“Claire… it goes without saying that we miss her terribly, and wish that we could have spent these past harrowing months with her and our grandkids. But life doesn’t always work out the way we want it, obviously, and now we…” Bill paused and took a deep breath.

“We hope that she’s okay, our Claire, and that she knows that we’re thinking of her and love her very much.” Bill stopped and took a big gulp of wine.

“I’m sure she does, Dad.”

“All right, let’s tuck in before all this wonderful food gets cold.”