One Month Without Mark
A month earlier, I buried my husband, Mark.
He was thirty-seven.
Funny.
Stubborn.
Certain he would outlive everyone.
Cancer took him in nine months.
Nine months from the first appointment to the last hospital room.
Nine months from discussing summer vacation to discussing pain medication.
Nine months from believing we still had time to learning how quickly time could disappear.
When my mother invited the children and me to stay with her, I agreed.
She said we needed a change of scenery.
What she meant was that she was worried about me.
Louise had stopped asking when Daddy was coming home.
She was eight and understood more than I wanted her to.
Noah was only five months old.
He still turned toward the door whenever he heard a man’s voice.
That hurt in a different way.
At night, after both children were asleep, I still reached toward Mark’s side of the bed before remembering.
Grief had transformed ordinary habits into traps.
The empty pillow.
The coffee mug he always used.
The blue sweater hanging behind the bedroom door.
I packed that sweater inside my carry-on even though I knew I would not wear it.
Louise watched me fold it.
She said nothing.
Then she placed her favorite stuffed rabbit beside it as though both objects belonged to the same emergency plan.
On the morning of the flight, Louise held Noah’s bottle while I checked our travel documents three times.
Neither of us mentioned that Mark had always handled the passports.
We did not need to.
