The Last Time in Their Bed

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

I was straightening out the blankets in the morning when I noticed it. Vomit. Oh God one of the pets had thrown-up on the bed, and the worst part? It was rock hard, crusty… it had pretty much fused with the sheets. How long had we been sharing our bed with this puke? I didn’t even want to think about it.

I opted not to tell my husband about my little discovery. Better to save him from the knowledge that we had been sleeping with a gross pile of vomit for the last who knows how many nights. I eyed the cats and dog suspiciously as I grabbed my work bag, gave my hubs a quick peck on the cheek, and ran out the door. It was 7:38 am and I was running late for work as usual

You know how when you are having a rough day you picture your bed at home, all warm and cozy and waiting for you? Well it was only lunchtime and already my day had gone to shit, but it’s hard to picture our bed as inviting when it was caked in vomit.  I’d have to do laundry before I could succumb to the sweet embrace of sleep. Could this day get any worse?

The phone call came at 3:07 pm. I left my cellphone plugged in at my desk while I was in a meeting and didn’t get the message until 4:02 pm. It’s one of the thoughts I linger on, if I hadn’t let the charge run so low on my phone then I would have had it with me, I would have seen the call come in, I would have been able to rush to the hospital on time. If I could have gotten there earlier… maybe I could have given him enough strength to hold on, to fight, to survive.

I got home at 12:14 am. I took a Lyft, I was in no shape to drive. The house was dark, of course, and when I walked in I was met by four angry, hungry little faces demanding dinner. They didn’t know what had happened, they never would, but they would feel his absence, they would wait for him to come home, they would rush to the door whenever they heard a car pull up, or footsteps on the stoop, always hopeful it was him. Eventually they would adjust to life without him.

I sat on the couch until 1:31 am. The time on the clock reminded me of him, January 31^st was his birthday. I rose abruptly and fled upstairs, to the bed that still held his smell. I needed to be enveloped by that smell again. I flipped on the light and started uncontrollably laughing because there was the vomit. The fucking vomit. I hadn’t told him about the fucking vomit that had shared our bed for our last night together, and now he would never know. Now there were so many things he would never know.