3 a. m.

You couldn’t have known it would be so sunny.  The weatherman had said it would rain.  How did you know it wouldn’t?  I guess the same way you knew everything:  That our marriage was a failure, that this house wouldn’t be a home for long, and that I’d be alone by the end of the year.  You predicted all of this with almost supernatural clarity.  Or was it just that you intended this all along?  Was that it?  Was that why I sat here, staring out the window at the rolling fields that had been so beautiful when we first moved in, wondering where you were?

My hat started to irritate my head, so I took it off, inadvertently brushing away the moisture that was clouding my vision.  In the process my elbow knocked off a vase full of wildflowers that you’d gathered a few days before.  Why had you put it there?  You knew I’d sit in this chair and that I’d probably knock it off!  You put it there deliberately, didn’t you?  You just wanted to add another irritation to such a miserable day.  

“No one in their right mind puts a vase of flowers next to a chair they sit in!”  I shouted.  Picking up some of the flowers, I started to tear them apart.  It felt good to destroy something with my hands.  I hoped that maybe the flowers felt something close to the way I felt.  When people said that someone had a broken heart, they often said it like it was a thing that happened every day.  They obviously didn’t know what I felt, because my heart wasn’t just broken.  It was still in the process of being pulled apart, inch by inch, just like someone who is tortured to death by barbarians.  Shouldn’t I be able to do the same thing to a bunch of flowers you’d picked?

The sun was setting by the time that I was able to pull myself out of the chair.  Only then did I realize that I’d made a pot of coffee that morning and then never poured myself a cup.  I wanted to blame it on you, but somehow couldn’t find a way.  The cold coffee sat there mocking me, laughing at the heart that I’d allowed to become tender towards you.  Hadn’t I known that you’d throw it away?  I guess not.

I didn’t even realize that I’d gone to bed until I was awakened by an awful screeching sound.  The house was pitch-dark, and it took my drowsy senses several moments to understand that the terrible sound was the phone ringing.  After that it took several more moments to make my body respond to the warning that seemed to be in the very heart of the frantic phone.

“Riiiiiiiiinngggg!  Riiiiiiiiiinngggg!”  I picked it up, more interested in cutting the commotion short than in hearing what the person had to say.

“John.”  It was your mother.  Why in the world would she be calling me at a time like this?  She was almost the last person I wanted to talk to.  I came close to hanging up, but when I heard her crying, no matter how mad I was at you, I couldn’t just cut her off.

“Ms. Gerald?”  She continued to sob on the phone, and since I didn’t know why or what to say I just stood there and listened.

“John,” she said in a quavering voice, “It’s...it’s Josie.”  She interrupted herself with a few more sobs.  By this point I had so overloaded my system with emotion that I only felt a few dull questions swarming inside my mind.

“John, she’s...she’s dead.”  She dissolved into sobs again.  The swarming in my head was clear now, and the dullness had been replaced by its antithesis, a clearness that was so jarring it almost had the same numbing effect.  I couldn’t move, I couldn’t say a word.  The darkness in the house was a physical representation of what was in my head, total and absolute darkness, nothingness.  

Finally, your mother’s sobs began to ebb, and she launched into an explanation.

“John, Josie loved you so much.”  She choked, then continued.  “She had a health condition, and it was slowly killing her.”  Letting out a few more sobs, she calmed herself again.  “She didn’t want you to know about it, because she was sure you would have married her anyways and then would have suffered every day with the knowledge of her condition.”  With every word there seemed to be some twisting, jarring pain in my heart, very different from but also similar to the pain I’d felt earlier in the day.  This time, though, my throat started to burn and choke me, and my chest felt like it was being squeezed in a giant’s hand.

Your mother inhaled deeply a few times.

“Josie came to visit me two days ago, and she suddenly knew that it was her time.  You were the only person she talked about.”  A few choked sobs escaped, and I don’t think they were from your mother.  In a flash I realized what I’d thought, how I’d doubted you, and how you’d loved me all this time.  I dropped the phone and fell to my knees, crying with wheezing, gasping breaths in between.  All the anger that had been directed at you had now doubled back on myself.  I wondered if I could sob myself into oblivion and stop feeling all this pain.

It must have happened, because the next thing I knew it was morning.  I was in my bed, and the beautiful rays of sun were laying on top of the white sheets.  Birds sang outside the window, and a fresh breeze brought in the scent of beauty and peace.  All of my pain was gone, and I instinctively put my hand over to where you lay.  It landed on your shoulder.  I opened my eyes.

“Good morning, darling.”  You lay there looking at me with a contented, sleepy smile.