Day 357 - Gamble

 GAMBLE

Prompt - Gamble : Be inspired by a casino or lottery ticket

"Twenty eight."

His age when they'd married.  Bill tried to concentrate.  In twenty seven years of playing the lottery, ever since it first began, they'd had one of their numbers come up first a couple of times a year.  Nancy had been the one to make the announcements, giving a running commentary on their progress or otherwise.  He'd got so used to it that it had become hard for him to follow what was happening on his own.

"Fifty one."

That was one of theirs too, the number of their first house.  He wondered how often they'd had two of theirs come up first?  She would have known instantly, been telling him before he'd even framed the question.  

"Nine."

Bill felt flustered.  He could only remember this happening once before, but maybe she'd have put him right.  Nine was the number of cats they'd had when they were choosing their numbers all those years ago.  The same numbers they'd stuck with since that very first draw, the fear of making a change increasing year on year.  Once you'd memorised them, been able to recite them every Saturday, there's no way to forget them.  And if those six came up after you'd made a change?  Well, you couldn't live with yourself, could you?  So here they were with those same six numbers after almost three decades.  He was, he corrected himself.  He was.  As in alone.

"Twenty two."

Bloody hell.  The age Nancy was when they got married in '71.  Bright, vivacious, always teasing him, but always caring.  Not just for him but for everyone in her orbit.  That's the way she was.  That's how she remained.  Until those final eight months as mind and body went into decline with a rapidity that left him breathless, gasping to catch up with the changes that her disease imposed on them both.  

"Forty nine."

Nancy Campbell, née Dryden, eighteenth November 1949 to twenty third October 2021.  That's where the forty nine came from.  Five numbers drawn, five numbers matching.  He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  If she'd been here they'd have been holding hands, holding breath, her eyes shining with the excitement of the moment, on the edge of a whoop or a groan.  There was only his birth year to go.  He'd been two years older than her when they met, and they'd clicked immediately.  Fifty years together, ups and downs, moments of joy, fear, wonder, worry, peace, passion.  His Nancy.

"Forty seven."

Bill looked at the screen in disbelief.  And wept as he had never wept before.