Sunday Scribblings-What's Your Sign

Even before she saw the rumpled bedclothes beside her, Teresa knew that Lawrence was already up and gone. A cold emptiness exuded from his side of the bed, one she felt sure had woken her from a rather pleasant dream.

"It's not a good sign," she thought, running her hands across the indentation in the sheets where his lean body should be sleeping peacefully. "Today of all days, he should be here." Although his intentions were magnanimous, allowing her to sleep while he dressed for early rounds at the hospital, she somehow felt cheated when he rose before her. Denied the opportunity for their customary good-bye, she was usually out of sorts for the rest of the day, and plagued with a niggling little fear that "something would happen" to him, and her last memory of him would be some trivial, nearly forgotten moment from the evening before.

Scooting over into the indentation left by her husband's body, Teresa curled herself into his space and buried her face in the pillow, inhaling the scent of his Prell shampoo and Irish Spring bath soap. She liked it when they started the day as a team - after all, as two Gemini's they were fated to work as a pair. The sign of the Twins, perfectly matched astrologically to one another. Teresa smiled, recalling that moment during their first meeting when she had posed the question which usually earned a derogatory chuckle.

"If you don't mind me asking," she had ventured, taking a sip of the rum and coke she had nursed throughout the evening, "what's your sign?"

Lawrence hadn't laughed, he had only raised his lovely thick eyebrows and regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. "Gemini," he answered. "June 12, 1978."

Teresa felt sure the whole room must have heard the bells that went off in her head at that moment, for here was the man she had been looking for her entire life. Perfect twins, they were, born on the same day. She had smiled at him, knowing that their fate was sealed.

Lost in this happy remembrance, she must have dozed off, and was startled to feel a warm hand cupped protectively around her belly.

"Happy birthday," Lawrence's deep voice whispered in her ear.

"Same to you," she answered sleepily, turning to wrap her arms around his neck. "Where were you, anyway?" she asked, still sulky that he had left her to waken alone.

"I went to get your present," he replied, dangling a thin plastic bag from Walgreen's in front of her face.

Teresa grinned and snatched the package from him. "I never thought I'd be this excited about a present from Walgreen's," she quipped. Tearing into the box, she removed the pencil shaped stick from it's container and headed toward the bathroom. Lawrence held up both hands, his fingers crossed hopefully.

"No need for superstition this time," she told him cheerily. "I'm already positive of the outcome. After all, aren't we the perfect pair?"