Our Room

I

     I’m sick. I usually don’t admit that I’m sick, but I can’t deny it this time. I decided to stay home from work today, in hopes that I will feel better tomorrow.

     This is the first time in almost a year that I have taken a sick day. Even though I know I shouldn’t, I usually just work through it. But here I am, sitting in bed instead of in my office.

When I was a kid, this is always what I imagined marriage would be like. Me sitting in bed, waiting for my husband to get home. I guess that is why I let myself stay home today; to let myself give into this fantasy, just once.

Ethan should be home in a few hours, until then, I will wait patiently, reading my favorite book.

When the door to our bedroom finally opens, I get a fluttery feeling in my chest. It’s him. But it’s not. I know this before I look up. My mother stands in the doorway, her cheeks streaked with tears.

“No,” I tell her, my illusion grinding to a halt as I watch her stick her head through the door.

“Julia,” she begs.

“No.”

As soon as she is gone, I slip back, waiting for my husband to come home to me. When he does, neither of us will ever leave this bed again. We won’t have to, because we are all we need.

I watch as the sun sets, my bed still empty. It’s okay, I tell myself. I just forgot that he was on a work trip. He will be home tomorrow.

Just before I let myself fall asleep, I get up and stretch, the way he is always telling me will help me sleep. I suppose that I will need it tonight. It is always harder to sleep without him.

We moved in together before we were married. This caused a scandal on his side of the family. Yet, his religious background didn’t stop him from moving into my smaller apartment. It was new to him, living in such a small place, but that’s why I insisted that he move in with me, rather than me going to live in the house his parents paid for. Some part of me just knew that it was the right thing to do. That I could show him that he did not need a nice house in a nice neighborhood to be happy.

Of course, I didn’t win the war. After we were married, we bought a big house, just outside the city, in a good school district. Despite what I was expecting, I love it. The same way that Ethan loved my apartment. I had to learn that I could find love even surrounded by more money than I ever had in my life.

Ethan has to travel for work fairly often. As a researcher myself, I have had many opportunities to travel, but not if I didn’t want to. It was perfect, we both agreed. Once we start a family it will be good that I don’t have to travel like Ethan does. We just haven’t gotten around to starting a family yet. Not that we haven’t tried.

The bed is cold on his side, but I curl myself around his pillow, inhaling his scent, imagining how good it will feel when he comes home tomorrow.

II

     “I promise, God, I promise you that I will do anything, anything. Just bring him back,” I can’t stop my voice from breaking. He was mine; he should get to stay mine. It’s not fair.

     “Oh baby,” my mother says, once again in the doorway.

     “Mama, please,” I sob. “Just bring him back.”

     “I wish I could. I wish I could.” She sounds so helpless.

     There has to be something I can do. I have to find a way to bring him back to me. Back to this bed. Our bed that still smells like him. Our room that still feels like him. His wife that will always love him.

     I think about the clothes of his that I donated for that clothes drive a few months before he died. I didn’t think he would mind. It was just a few t-shirts and an old hoodie. He wasn’t even as upset as I was, once I realized that he wasn’t ready to part with them. What was I thinking? That he hadn’t worn them in years, I guess. But maybe if I hadn’t given them away, he would still be here. Maybe if I hadn’t given away something he loved, the universe wouldn’t have taken him from me in return.

     Or maybe I am being punished for not wanting to keep trying to have a baby. This is what I get for not being strong enough to start a family.

     Or maybe some higher power could tell that I loved him too much. Took him away to balance the world again. I never worried that my love had been too much. In our own little world, it never felt like enough. But other people were always surprised at our love. I guess it wasn’t safe, for either of us.

     “I will let you take him from me, but don’t take him from the rest of the world.” Maybe this is the answer. “He doesn’t have to love me, just let me see him one more time,” I mutter under my breath.

     I hear a sigh, then my mother closing the door behind her.

     I don’t remember when exactly I gave up on my fantasy. Maybe a few moments ago, maybe a few months. It has all become one big blur as if I am missing my glasses. Only my husband by my side could make the world come back into focus.

     Why him? I have asked myself this at least a dozen times already, but this doesn’t stop me from asking it again. Take me instead. A life for a life. That only seems fair. I would gladly die in his place. Take me. Take me. Take me. Take me. TAKE ME. Please, God, I don’t want to live while Ethan is dead. Take me instead.

     If I were dead, he would still have so much to live for. He has a job. he has an amazing family, a niece that adores him. What do I have? My mother is the only family I have left, and she adores Ethan, so she wouldn’t even be that worse off without me. I know I wouldn’t have to worry about her. I do research that any one of my coworkers can take over. In fact, someone has probably taken over my research already. I am replaceable

     But Ethan, his family needs him, his job needs him. He isn’t replaceable like I am. His years after me could be put to good use. He could find a new wife as soon as he thought he had grieved enough. A wife that could give him the family he always wanted. He could have all the things I could never give him. But I, I have nothing without him. He gave me everything I ever could have wanted.

     Take me.

III

     “Honey?” my mother asks, “why don’t we go for a walk. You should get some fresh air. I don’t think you’ve even been out of this room for months.”

     “I know I haven’t, mom,” I sneer.

     She sighs, looking at me with pain in her eyes, and leaves. Giving up on me.

     “Leave!” I yell after her. “I don’t want you here anyway.”

     I don’t understand why she’s here. Annoying me with her pitying sighs all day. Forcing me to eat when I would rather starve.

     My body swells with frantic energy, and, not knowing what else to do, I throw a pillow at the door. Which was, I realize, the least satisfying thing to throw. I reach for the plastic water bottle on my bedside table and throw it at the door. I can throw harder than that.

     The book goes next, smashing into the wall beside the door to the outside world, and falling to the floor accompanied by the sound of pages crumpling. I want something that will break.

     The candle smashes against the door, leaving a dent. The glass shatters across the floor, and I barely stop myself from going to step in the glass shards. I can almost imagine the glass tearing at the flesh of my feet, soft from not wearing shoes. How the blood would look on the white flesh of the candle, still sticking to some shards. How my feet would smell metallic and sweet; like iron and honey. I let imagining it be enough, as I fall back onto my bed.

     I have the decency to push my face into a pillow before I scream. A pillow that used to smell like him, but doesn’t anymore. It has been too long. The devil took him away too long ago and is now leeching his scent from my sheets. The room grows duller with every passing day. How do you hurt the universe, the devil, God, whatever it is that takes someone away like this?

     If only, like Ahab, I could search out the thing that hurt me so badly. And if I were lucky, I could go down with the ship, just like he did. Escape this nightmarish world without the only person I truly love.

     I remember the day he died, he told me that he loves me, just like every day. But then, he told me that he could tell something good was happening. He said he wasn’t sure if it was at work, in the neighborhood, or somewhere closer to home. He didn’t even try to hide the way his gaze slipped to my womb.

     It made me want to cry. How could I keep letting him hope that I could get pregnant? We had tried for years, and only twice could I get that stupid test to tell me what I wanted. But it hadn’t lasted. Each time blood slicked my thighs, my family grew larger, but not in the way we both wanted. The hole where my children should be, growing immeasurably. The fucking world depriving me of what I deserved.

     Maybe I wouldn’t be like Ahab, unlike him, I have many injuries to avenge.

     I scream into the pillow all over again, feeling the pounding in my head grow heavier.

IV

     “I love you.”

     Those were my last words to him. I shouldn’t be this sad. I sent him off with love. I didn’t tell him that I hated him, or that I wanted a divorce, or something dramatic. Just that I loved him. See, if I had said something hurtful, I could have at least justified how guilty I feel, how much I hate myself.

     “Julia, honey, you have to leave this room. You’ve been in here for months.”

     “I can’t.”

     “I want to help you. How can I help you?” My mother looks up from her place on the floor, slouched against the closed door. From her posture, I can tell that she understands why I’m in here. This was our room. I never felt as safe as I did when laying in this house, in this room, on this bed, in his arms. How could I leave it when I know there is a whole world without him?

      I have buried myself in his clothes over the past weeks. Taking out only one garment at a time. Wearing it, or simply holding it to my chest until I can no longer feel him until I can no longer smell him. Then I get up and do it all over again, letting the clothes pile up on the bed that I never leave. I feel like I am wasting his scent somehow. Like once I get through his closet, I won’t have a purpose anymore.

     “It’s been nine months.”

     “That doesn’t make anything better,” I tell my mom, and it’s true. It only makes it hurt worse. She keeps telling me that I should be getting better by now, but all I can think about is how I want it to be weeks, because at least then I could tell myself that he was right, that I was finally pregnant. But here, nine months later, I can’t fool myself anymore. Not that I ever thought I was pregnant, just another fantasy I was letting myself live.

     The first time I got pregnant, even the doctors thought that it would last, that we would finally get to start our family. He painted the guest room a pale yellow, gender-neutral, he said. He bought a crib even though I was only four months along. When we left the hospital, I thought he was going to leave me. He was more broken than I ever thought I would see him. He looked like he had given up on life. Rather like I look now, I suppose. I didn’t understand then why I wasn’t as sad as he was. It was only after my second miscarriage that I realized it was because I knew it would never last. I had been absorbing the pain of what was to come for weeks. He had to feel it all at once. I painted the room back to that dull beige so he wouldn’t have to.

     “It has been nine months, and it is physically painful to leave this bed. You think I don’t know that I should be magically better by now?” There might have been a time when there was power behind my words, but now, they come out raspy and slow.

     “You’re not being fair to yourself. No one ever gets magically better after something like this. No one ever gets all the way better, either. But you’re not even trying. It’s killing me to see you like this.”

     I have grown so used to my tears that I no longer notice them, eternally wetting my face. “I’m dying without him, mom.”

     There is nothing she can say to that, so she gives up. She lets her head fall into her hands and I watch the silent sobs wrack her body. If only I had enough energy to cry like that. I don’t have the energy for anything. I can’t make myself sob, and I can’t stop myself from crying. I am hopeless.

     I let my eyes slide shut, collapsing into the sleep that is always there to take me away into a world of darkness.

V

     “I love you, Ethan. I love you more than you could ever know. And I will never stop loving you,” I whisper, my forehead pressed against the door. This is the closest I have gotten to leaving our room in a year.

     I know that I am not done grieving. I know that I will hurt for a long time to come. But I also know that I will not get better by staying here. My time has come.

     He has been steeped from our room, day by day. His scent, his words, the way he smiled, the way he always kept it clean. Our room wouldn’t recognize him anymore. But that’s okay because he didn’t leave this room to disappear forever. I steeped him from this room. I absorbed all that was left by the man that I loved for fourteen years. Fifteen. It has been fifteen now.

     The world that was blurry without him, slowly grew clearer as I pulled him into my body, my mind. There is a part of him that lives inside me now. I am not naïve; I know that it is only a fragment of him. But it is a fragment that I loved, and that loved me unconditionally. And that I can live with.

     The doorknob burns my skin as I grip it tightly. But I know that this burning will cleanse me, will help me grow anew.

     It is time.

     The hardest part is not opening the door. It is taking the first step. That first step I made with cement clinging to my every limb. But the next is easier. In the kitchen, my mother is sipping her second cup of coffee, and she nearly drops it when she sees me.

     The burning encases my whole body, but instead of running back to our room, I run into the arms of my mother.

     From now, this house will become our room. Then, it can be this town. Eventually, the whole world will be our room.