It’s dark as I roll to the edge of the bed, rise to standing, and pause a second to maintain my balance before I make my way down the hall to the bathroom. In a few moments I’m back in bed, all too aware of the empty space alongside me.
Our marriage bed is more frequently all my own. Even on those nights he doesn’t go out, he stays up until the wee hours, sometimes dawn, enraptured with the screen of his computer. He’s here almost every night to read bedtime stories to the children, to tuck them, sharing a riddle or word play, ending with a kiss goodnight. He leaves bedroom doors ajar and pads softly down the hallway. Soon after, I hear the side door close, the engine start, and the car backing out of the driveway, and I wonder how I can be the wife he wants. I wonder, what is the wife he wants? A wife who won’t complain when he leaves, or when he returns.
As I doze off to sleep, I hear the garage door opener hum as it lifts the heavy door, and the sound of his Volvo accelerating up the driveway and into the garage. More humming as the door closes at a steady pace, without urgency or hesitation, emotionless.
Months later he has gone for good. The Volvo, packed with his clothes and little else, backed out of the garage for the last time. Years later the divorce is final and I am standing in the dark when I hear the garage door hum. As the door rises in its tracks my body jolts with a familiar, sick fear.
