.. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..-

I could tell it was going to be a guest room night as soon as I got home. I might have even known instinctively when I’d woken up next to you this morning, drenched in your sweat from all the way across the bed; maybe that’s why I left work early. My boss is almost begging me to take time off, “all the time you need,” he says, but I know you’d rather I go. It’s a small cage, our house. Not enough room for both of us to be trapped inside.

               You were on the couch when I get home. I told you about my day, which was boring, so I added in goofy extra shit about dragons and monsters. I told you about the office printer that’s possessed by ghosts, trying to get you to smile. It didn’t work. That’s when I knew for sure that it was going to be a guest room night.

               It wasn’t my idea, the guest room. When I said “in sickness or in health,” I meant that. But you hate for me to see you like you are on nights like this one. You’re proud, always have been. You keep your head up, no matter what, and the least I can do is pretend that I don’t see when it’s getting to be too hard. I want to comfort you, to feed you soup and cuddle you, but you made me promise when all this began that I wouldn’t turn myself into your nurse. So I called Kate and told her we needed her to come in early tonight and walked down the hall to the guest room.

               We met at a summer camp, years ago. I was eleven and you were twelve. Your mom had sent you to camp with a brand-new flashlight, and inside the box was a little insert that had all the morse code signs on it. All the girls in our cabin had crowded around you, trying to learn to spell their names in morse code. Most of them got bored after a few minutes. But you and I sat there, fascinated, until our counselor had dragged us off to dinner. I had one word memorized: A-N-N-A. Your name. Dotdashdashdotdashdotdotdash. I’d flash it to you from across the campfire every night, and you’d flash something back to me, but I could never figure out what it was.

               I spent that year determinedly memorizing the morse code alphabet. I begged my mom to let me return to summer camp the next year. She finally relented, but you weren’t there. I later learned that you’d moved across the country. I never stopped thinking about you, and years later, when you sat down across from me in an airplane terminal, I recognized you right away. You didn’t recognize me though, until I got out my phone flashlight.

Dotdashdashdotdashdotdotdash. Your eyes widened.

“C-O-F-F-E-E?” you flashed back. We got caught up over overpriced airport coffees, both missed our flights, and got married three months later.

We call it the guest room, but in the state it’s in now we’d never invite guests to stay in it. The walls are a blank white, just a base coat of paint. There are no decorations, or even curtains. The only piece of furniture is a bare twin bed, next to which an unassembled Ikea bookshelf is propped. There are a couple cardboard boxes in the corner. We’d barely gotten moved in when we’d found out.

I fetch a wad of sheets from the linen closet--- you always used to say one day you were going to teach me how to fold laundry—and make up the bed in the guest room. Guest room days have been getting more and more frequent lately, but I can’t bear to set the room up for real. Better to pretend this is still just temporary. I poke my head into our room to check on you, and to grab my toothbrush: Kate’s got you all hooked up to all the machines that will hopefully keep you alive through the night, and you’re watching some old sci-fi show on TV. You manage a smile when you see me. I sit at the foot of our bed and watch the Doctor blow up some Daleks in black and white, then say goodnight. You nod back at me and put a finger to your throat apologetically. It hurts to speak. I fluff your pillows and make sure the water glass on your bedside table is full, then return to the guest room next door.

Back in the guest room, I toss and turn. I can hear TV noises through the wall for a little while, then they’re cut off and all I can hear are the faint sounds of the machines, beeping and pumping away rhythmically. I miss when our house used to be quiet at night, and I’m paralyzed with fear at the thought that my wish might come true. “Any day now,” the doctor had said.

We used to talk about turning this room into a nursery. Of course we’d adopt. You’d be a great mom. I would do my best. That’s why we moved out of our apartment to begin with, so we’d have the space. I have pamphlets from the local adoption center in my glove box still. I’d been filling out the interest forms in the waiting room at the hospital that first time, back when we thought it was just a headache.

I press my ear to the wall, hungry for any sign of you. I’m not used to sleeping alone. My mom used to have to carry me kicking and screaming back to my bed each night after I’d snuck into her room to sleep with her. But you’re silent. Only the steady rhythm of the machines lets me know that you’re still here with me.

I press my hand to the wall. You’re right on the other side. I knock,

Dotdashdashdotdashdotdotdash.

You respond.

I repeat it back to you: .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..-