Forever Good Night

“He forgot to turn the damn alarm off again.” She said this aloud through gritted teeth as she threw off the covers, but there was no one there to hear her.

As she stomped down the stairs, she tried to remember just how many times this had happened in the last month. Her husband always left for work early. He was the first one out of the bed in the morning, and she was the last one in it at night. It’d been that way since they married.

She entered the four-digit code and the alarm stopped. A voice from the base, which she referred to as “Bitchin’ Betty” said, “Alarm off. An alarm was triggered by an entry sensor.” Like she needed to be told one more time the details of this infuriating routine. She was mad, and when she finally found her phone, she let her husband know.

“You forgot to turn off the alarm. Again.” That would show him.

He always responded with apologies, and occasionally a story about the circumstances that led to his having done so. But it didn’t seem to have any effect. He was in a season of forgetfulness.

She had explained to him several times that as a writer, she did her best work in the late hours of the evening or even the wee hours of the morning. And as a sleeper, she did her best work, usually, from a few hours before sunrise, to ten. Some mornings even later.

Well, she’d had it. They were going to hash this out tonight. His morning work-focus was resulting in selfish inconsideration of her, and they were going to get into it tonight when he got home.

In her stewing, she realized the alarm was not the only thing she was upset about. His damnable snoring would either keep her awake, or wake her up through the night. They had talked. She had pleaded with him to have a sleep study so they could see if he needed a CPAP machine. He had made it clear he didn’t want to go to bed every night looking like a fighter pilot. But he had agreed to try a nose strip.

It was a flimsy metal strip covered in medical fabric. The strip had a very sticky side so it would adhere to the nose. He’d been wearing one for some time, and she’d even tried it. She breathed better through the night, but his wearing one didn’t help him all that much. Or her. She would admit his snoring didn’t wake her as often, but she rarely slept through the night.

Or the morning. When he left without disarming the damn alarm.

When he got home from work, she was waiting. And ready. But she postponed until they’d had dinner to raise her complaint. And then it was on.

They had never been any good at talking about the tough stuff. They just ended up fighting. And they were no good at that either. Words they never meant to say always spewed out and scratched each other’s hearts. And stuff they thought they’d forgiven were raised from the dead. They never really got anywhere. Oh, complaints about the alarm and the snoring were mentioned, but those couldn’t hold center stage very long, and their attention quickly went to some other gripe.

In the end, he stormed out for a walk. He’d do this when they’d hit the wall arguing. It was good for his health; well for them both. Their heartrates braked, and they were forced to spend some time apart.

He had come home just before his normal time for bed. After setting the alarm, which he regretted had caused all this trouble in the first place, they had a brief, but polite, no-eye-contact exchange.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Okay.”

She worked on her novel for a little over two hours. In the section she penned, the main character owned up to a mistake he’d made in a relationship. At least half her writing time had been spent trying to get her character to apologize, but he wouldn’t, at least, not in an acceptable way. Fatigued and defeated, she began climbing the stairs to her bedroom.

When she opened the door, slowly, as to not disturb her sleeping husband, she realized the room was quiet. As fear can make one do, she had several thoughts before the door had moved even a few inches. Maybe her husband had jumped out the window? Could he have died of a heart attack? Would she find him stone cold in the bed?

But when the door was completely open, she discovered him lying awake, staring at his phone.

“Hey, I couldn’t sleep,” he said to her.

“Sorry,” was all she said as she walked by to the bathroom. While she brushed her teeth, she realized she would really like to stay mad, because he deserved a little wrath, but also that the steam had gone out of it. And his words had been about sleep, but his tone had been apology. She put on her nose strip and decided she was willing, if he was, to talk more rationally, about issues instead of feelings.

They spent the next hour sharing kindness from their hearts. She loved this man so, and knew he loved her, too. She thought about how she might have to get out of bed and turn the alarm off again in the morning, but at this moment, the thought didn’t make her angry. She was pretty sure she’d be able to do it out of love.

When they felt sure they’d said all they needed to, she turned out her bedside lamp, casting the room into darkness. They laid, still, in the bed for a few minutes, then did the blanket cuddle, getting themselves into their best, individual, fall-asleep position. And then a few minutes later, they were both on their backs again, staring at the ceiling. He finally asked her if it would be too weird for them to go for a walk together. It didn’t seem weird to her at all.

They ambled down their street, hand in hand. At the intersection, they crossed over into one of the city’s parks; a favorite walking loop. Not long after they’d entered the park, her phone rang.

“It’s two-thirty in the morning. Who could be calling me?” she said as she dug the phone from her jeans front pocket.

“I’m not answering. I don’t know this number. It’s from New Jersey.”

It was probably fatigue, but there was a bit of frustration in her voice. They hadn’t taken 25 steps and it rang again. Same number. Even more frustration.

They continued the loop and when they had walked through the turnaround, they could see their house. And flashlights. And police cruisers. 

“It must have been the alarm company. We forgot to turn it off when we left the house,” he said as they picked up their pace.

They talked, a little breathlessly, about how they were going to walk up on two officers at two-something in the morning after they’d been called to a tripped home alarm.

From a pretty good distance, she called out, “Officers.”

She had had to say it again to get their attention. There were two of them, and when they got into their driveway, each officer shone a light in one of their faces. She explained they were the home-owners and how they'd left the house without turning off the alarm. The policemen were understanding and wished them a safe and calm rest of the night.

When they got inside, he had a sudden realization. “We must have been a sight,” he began, “walking up on them in the dark like that. And we still had our nose strips on!”

They got tickled over the thought. The late hour and the accompanying exhaustion turned the moment into the simples and they laughed so hard they were barely able to breathe, in spite of their nose-strips.

Having finally calmed down, they turned out the downstairs lights and made their way, together, to climb the stairs for the last time this evening. When they got to the base of the stairs, he thought she, being in front, would turn on the stairwell light. But instead, she took the first step, turned and faced him eye to eye, and said, “I love you, mister, I always will.”

She put her arms around him, and he returned the gesture. They kissed a few times and then held a long hug. He opened his eyes and pulled away so they could begin the climb, and that’s when he saw the dark figure dart from their bedroom across the hall to the guest room.