She wanted to know about him so badly. There was no one to ask, no one to reach out to, no one to trust. She sat alone in her house. The house she decorated for him. Some of his things still in place even if she is the only one that knows they are there. The carpets she bought so his dog wouldn’t be scared by her hardwood floors. She wanted to know how he was. She wanted to know how he was dealing with the world, his world, without her.
Time has passed. A lot of time. There were days when she was ok. There were days when she had not wanted to know. She had days of distraction when he didn’t cross her mind and she had to admit that she liked the fact she had reached that level of recovery. She could look back on those days when he hadn’t enslaved her mind and felt partially proud, with a little bit of sadness around the edges that her recovery was making her miss him less.
That was the goal, wasn’t it? To reach a point where all the days were not spent wondering about how he was doing was the end game. Maybe. Not for her though. On this day, she walked the floors from room to room. Trying to busy herself with cleaning. Reorganizing the linen closet, again. Vacuuming the dog hair off those carpets for the third day in a row. Her dog’s hair not his, but that is ok she guessed. Or was it. Why did every floor, carpet, wall, corner remind her of him? Why did she even ask the question anymore when she knew there was no answer coming her way. She could ask over and over again and the answer will never be clear.
Maybe it wasn’t him that had her walking the floors and obsessively cleaning and reorganizing, avoiding the things that would require her to focus on anything else. The state of the world, that state of the state, the constant news flashes of the next horrible thing. She could turn on the music and sing it out like she use to do, but no. She use to do it with him. Long drives after a shit day of work they would drive home and turn on the music of choice. Sometimes she knew the words, sometimes she would just listen to his voice. It was always pitch-perfect, always soothing. No, music doesn’t help anymore.
She wanted to know if he was ok. She saw traces of him online as they both worked from him. The little red dot that said he was in a meeting or a call. The little green light that said he was available. If only that were true. It was work and she knew that line. When the day was done was the only time she was allowed to admit to herself that she wanted to know everything about him.
She shook it off. Every second of the day that he crossed her mind she shook it off. Every second. Today was no different and maybe even a little more challenging. A sleepless night with only one hour of unconsciousness she could claim as hers, she knew it would be hard today. But she rose, she bathed, she applied her makeup, she logged on to let him know she was online and ready for work, and she waited. For what she wasn’t sure and would probably never know what she wanted and what she was waiting for. She just knew she wanted to know.
