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It was cool for May. I could use a leather duster. Another tear slipped down the bridge of my nose.
I'd found a sock that morning. A lone black sock that had slipped between the hamper and the wall. It was too big to be my own, and I didn't wear black socks. Another memento.
It was sitting on my nightstand, folded over. I'd left the room. I couldn't sit there and stare at it anymore. It had taken me thirty-seven minutes to simply put it down.
Little things. Little insignificant things that would make me cry for hours even though I didn't want to anymore. Spent enough of my time aching over the big things.
Today was a big thing.
"To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, in good times and in bad, until death do you part." We'd certainly had the good times. Now the bad was making its appearance.
A year. I said I would follow those vows one year ago today. I guess we still were following them. Holding was a little harder with such distance in-between. I wiped absently at my cheeks.
The sun was glimmering overhead almost too bright and overpowering. I squinted, trying to shield my eyes, but it only caused more liquid to slip out of the corners.
She'd left it there. I couldn't believe it as I slowly stroked the letters on the announcement. She hadn't put it away. I found the sock sitting besides it, but wasn't sure if it belonged to me. There might be another man using my bed. And my wife.
Everything looked the same. The only thing missing was her.
I wandered from room to room, lightly fingering the trinkets we had collected. The lump in my throat was growing.
I found myself staring at the calendar on the fridge. I don't know why I was looking at it. I didn't really need it to tell me the date. May 17th. It had been 365 days. Or nights, depending on how you looked at it. "Happy anniversary," I whispered to the empty kitchen.
The dry cleaning weighed my arms down and I stumbled over the long plastic bags. Didn't really matter. I couldn't
face using the machine anymore. My stomach fluttered a little as I climbed the stairs. I couldn't remember if I had eaten anything yet today. Haven't really wanted to. It flip-flopped again, into my throat. I wouldn't be sick over this.
Eighth floor. Six plus two is eight. He's been gone for sixty-two days. My insides do that strange constriction thing again. I won't admit to myself that it's happened before today. Not so often anymore. Maybe I'm learning to survive without him. I know that it's a lie.
I open the door, forcefully, slamming it on its hinges hard enough to meet the wall as it slams backwards. And then I freeze. For he is back.
She's there, in the doorway. Her face is slightly flushed, and I watch as the dry cleaning that she's holding slowly floats towards the ground. She's breathing heavily, I can see her chest rising quickly with each intake, and it isn't until now that I realize how much I missed her.
He's sitting there at the kitchen table, leaning back in the chair. And as he glances over at me, I see a lone tear track on his cheek. His eyes are bluer than I remember, more than any picture I have can show. "Hey Buffy." He calmly says. But I can only stare.
She doesn't answer me, and the silence fills the room. Neither of us moves. I want to get up and leave, or ask her to, because I've had my turn at that, but I can only stare.
I find myself running towards him, tripping over the rumpled garments at my feet, but it doesn't matter. He's back, and he's here, and he's real, and I love him. I'm crying and his arms are just the right size for me to fit between.
She's so warm and everything I remember her to be, and I can't help but shower her face with light kisses. Her tears taste salty on my lips. Her hair slips smoothly through my fingers. She was Buffy. But then she always was Buffy to me.
"I love you so much."
"Pet, I never stopped loving you."
Somewhere between sleeping besides him again in our queen sized bed, dancing to our song in the living room, and saying how we'll never be apart again he asked me where the other heartbeat had come from. I stared at him puzzled as his smirk grew on his face. God, I missed that smirk. His finger pointed to my abdomen. "Have something you want to share with Daddy?" My hand moved to lie on top of my midsection. His covered my own. And it was then that I laughed.
The End