He tries hard not to look at the empty bed as he comes
into the bedroom to change his clothes. He slept in yesterday’s
clothes again. On the couch again, too. He never could sleep very well
when she went away on trips with her sister or for work. He always
spent the first night on the couch, preferring to fall asleep while
forcing himself to stay up late watching anything and everything on
television.
After that first night he would move back into the bedroom and
reluctantly crawl into the empty bed and drift off to sleep feeling
incomplete. He always stayed on his own side of the bed even though
she wasn’t there.
One time he had inadvertently drifted across the invisible median
that separated his side and her side of the bed (her side was slightly
larger; though, he was much bigger than her) and awoke to find his
head buried in her pillow. It was the lingering scent of her floral
and citrus shampoo and the faint odor of sweat that had awakened him.
He was unable to get back to sleep after that.
This time, when she had gone, he did not allow himself to go back
into the bedroom to sleep in their bed alone. He was afraid not of
smelling her on the pillow, but of not smelling her at all. He was
afraid that her scent may be fading, and he just couldn’t handle
that.
As he pulls his shirt off and tosses it into the hamper next to the
dresser he catches a glimpse of the bed reflected in the mirror. He
can see the sheet lying slightly askew, still in the position in which
they landed the last time she threw them aside and crawled out of bed.
Her pillow still carries the faint impression from where her head had
lain that last night.
He was certain that if he ran across the room and jumped on the bed
and thrust his face into her pillow he would be able to inhale the
rich scent of her as if she had only just left. For the tiniest
fraction of a second his muscles tense with the anticipation of the
movement, but relax again as he restrains himself.
He looks away from the mirror and crosses the room into the bathroom.
The cold tile against his bare feet is a welcome shock, snapping him
from his private reverie back into the present moment. He reaches into
the shower stall and turns the hot tap on full blast to give the water
time to heat up.
He removes his pants and then his underwear and leaves them lying in
the middle of the bathroom floor just the way she always hated. He can
almost hear her voice telling him to pick up after himself. A small,
half smile turns the corner of his mouth upward for a moment. A second
later all traces of the smile are gone and he is rigid with
instinctual fear.
He is certain that he just heard her voice from the other room. His
eyes dart randomly around as he strains at the edge of perception to
hear the sound of her voice. He ignores the building steam and
humidity as the scalding hot water continues to cascade from the
shower head and down into the porcelain bathtub. The sound is
continuous but rhythmic. It is the sound of laughter and of crying. It
is from within this sound that he heard her voice.
He used to do that all the time, before she left. He would turn on
the shower then think that she had said something to him and have to
ask her what she said. She always said that he heard voices in the
rain. He relaxed prepared to take his shower. He carefully reached
into the steaming shower and turned up the cold water to take some of
the edge off the heat. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the vanity
mirror that hung above the sink. He froze.
He saw something written in the steam on the mirror. The letters
looked foreign to him. They did not spell out anything, but rather
seemed to be a random arrangement of letters. He turned away from the
shower and looked closer at the letters. He could see then that they
looked strange because they were written backwards.
He was never any good at puzzles or riddles. She was the one who
enjoyed brain teasers and crosswords; though, she always tried to get
him to figure something out in clues rather than tell him straight
out. He turned away from the mirror and back towards the bedroom. He
could see himself reflected in the mirror above the dresser, naked and
shrouded in the steam of the bathroom. Over his shoulder he could just
make out the message written in steam, but now it appeared normal.
It said, “I love you always and all ways.”
It was too much for him to accept. He dropped to his knees and
started crying great heaving sobs. Every day for the past year he had
gone through this same ritual. He would spend the night on the couch
and then shower in their bathroom, trying desperately not to look at
the bed where she used to sleep. Never, in all that time had he ever
noticed the mirror. Never before had he seen that message, her final
message to him.
One year ago today, while away from home with her sister and while he
slept on the couch in her abscence, she was killed in a violent car
crash. Since that day he has not been able to bear the thought of
sleeping in their bed knowing that she will never again join him. He
has longed to touch where her body had lain, and to smell her
lingering scent, but he has resisted the urge every day.
Until now.
He quickly rises to his feet and walks into the bedroom. For the
first time in a year, he looks at her vacant side of the bed directly.
Still weeping, he lowers himself down into her side of the bed a
pushes his face into her pillow.
He can still smell the faint scent of her floral and citric shampoo
and the subtle odor of sweat, lingering.
Jaek
writes here.
