Til Death

The porch light illuminated my windowsill, the only dim light in the house. Casserole and lasagna cooked by my family cooled in their tin foil-wrapped dishes on the kitchen counter. Shadow coated the bedroom, along with piles of laundry I couldn’t be bothered to clean or fold. Cold air hummed through the vents.

This was the house I shared with my husband, Harry. Until he died.

Now, no one played music in the car. No one filled the bird feeder. No one surprised me with chocolate and flowers that he could barely afford. I brushed my teeth, laid in the too-large bed, and wept alone, for the rest of my life.

We’d met outside the supermarket down the street from the apartment building we both coincidentally lived in. There was a booth of elementary schoolers set up outside the entrance, collecting donations and signatures for support of the youth music class. His floppy brown curls caught my attention, but his nervous smile made my heart flutter. He handed me a clipboard, and I looked for a ring on his finger. When I didn’t see one, I came back with bags of groceries and gave him my number then asked him to get dinner with me.

I came home to a message on the answering machine. He’d been too flustered to tell me that he was busy that evening but wanted to get coffee in the morning.

Two years of chemotherapy and it was pneumonia that killed him. He was so close to remission. We had so many plans for his future.

The front door rattled. Someone knocked. I slid my legs to the floor and let my feet hit the wood. It took almost all my energy to push myself up from the mattress. “Coming,” I muttered, too quiet for it to be a real response to whoever was at the door. His mother? My brother? I didn’t have many friends, but maybe one of his decided that I shouldn’t be alone.

Another knock, more insistent. I sighed and leaned forward, slumping against the metal without bothering to look through the peephole. Another habit broken in as many pieces as my heart. I flipped the deadbolt and leaned back with the doorknob in my hand.

There he was. In the orange glow. My dead husband with one hand in the pocket of the dress pants I’d brought to dress him in the casket. He looked as surprised to see me as I felt to see him.

“Hey,” he said, just like when we’d first met, with the same nervous smile. “Do you have a moment?”

He caught me as I dropped into his arms and leaned into his chest. He smelled the same, like sandalwood and leather, and I could feel his heart beating against my cheek. I tried to speak, to take a deep breath, but all I could do was spill tears onto his shirt. He was alive, he was with me, and the last week had been nothing more than a terrible nightmare.

Somehow, we made our way inside, lights coming on as he brought me to the bed and met my wide eyes. “Celine,” he said. “It’s okay. Let me get you some water.”

I gripped his arms and dug my fingers in. “Don’t!” I burst. “Don’t you dare leave me.” Then I pressed my lips to his. The fine remnants of funerary makeup clung to his skin, the only thing that reminded me of the truth. I kissed him again and wiped his lips with my thumb. “I must have really lost it.”

He drew me into an embrace. His gentle voice, always melodic, said, “I thought my greatest love was music until I met my beautiful muse: You.”

His wedding vows. When he’d recited them before our family and friends, he cried more than I did. His students had played my bridal march. I lined the aisles with all the flowers that he’d given me, dried over our three years of dating.

I wiped his face and with the scent of the makeup gone, I allowed myself to get lost in the feeling and enjoyment of him even if it was all in my imagination. He showered me in relief, in love and tenderness. As I drifted to sleep, I dreamt blissfully of nothing.

“How did this happen? How is it possible?” I asked in the morning, waking in his arms. Whatever my delusion, it lasted through the night and lingered in the fresh light.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I remember the hospital; I remember your voice… Then I was at the front door, and it was locked. I just knew I had to see you again.”

The last time I’d seen Harry alive was in his hospital bed. It happened so suddenly. A cough that wouldn’t go away developed into fever and chills. Before I knew it, we were in the emergency room.

“Are you hungry?”

For the first time in days, I was. We made seasoned eggs and bacon; toasted bagels then covered them in cream cheese and tossed the prepared meals from loved ones in the garbage. He brewed coffee and added sugar to my cup. We wrapped our arms around each other and fed each other steaming mouthfuls.

We packed a bag with blankets, towels, sunscreen, and strawberries then slipped on shorts and sandals. At the end of our neighborhood was a lake we wanted to take our future children to, with a beach we spent many weekend dates sitting on. I didn’t bother locking the door behind us – I had everything I needed with me already.

Harry wrapped me in his arms and ran his fingers through my hair as we lounged on our blanket. I tickled his ribs when I helped put sunscreen on his back. He yelped and reached back to return the favor and wound up chasing me through the sand until we splashed into the water, laughing. When we dried off, he handed me the strawberries and took his guitar from the trunk of the car. I had forgotten it was there.

He strummed a melody from his heart, a song that neither of us had heard before. I’d never met anyone who could compose a song like him, before. “Celine, your love is like the moon on the water,” he sang, “Celine, my guiding light over endless oceans, carry my heart home.”

Families walked by and gave us space, not knowing that I’d lost him days ago. Not knowing that, yesterday, I believed Harry was dead. I told myself if they heard his song, that meant he was real. He was alive and he was with me. Perhaps the hospital and funeral home were the lie, and this was reality.

We showered and Harry brought me my little black dress. “Let me treat you,” he said. “I remember your favorite place for dinner – well, your favorite place for dessert.”

Harry shaved his stubbly beard and mustache. The hairs dotted the trash, sprinkled on top of the tissues that caught my tears.

I took the dress and ribbed him. “You mean my treat, Mr. Music Teacher’s Salary.”

He scrunched his nose, the way he did when he was being playful. “You’re too good to me. I’d love dinner and dessert from my beautiful wife.”

I kissed him. It was sweeter than any chocolate.

A pianist played soft sonatas across the restaurant’s dining room, joined occasionally by a beautiful singer. Harry ordered us a sweet white wine to share. We sipped and stared into each other’s dark eyes. He held my hand over the table and brushed his thumb along my knuckles, occasionally touching the wedding ring still on my left hand. This was the place he had proposed to me.

“It’s just like that night,” I said, knowing he would understand me. “It’s perfect.”

Harry shook his head. “It’s better than perfect. Whatever’s happened before, I…”

I sipped my wine, leaving a lipstick stain on the rim. “Not even death can do us part.”

He smiled. “That must be it. Our love must be stronger than –!”

He withdrew his hand from mine and covered his mouth. He coughed.

“Harry!” I dropped my glass as I reached across the table for him, and it shattered against the ground.

The piano player missed a note then continued. Harry took my hand again and cleared his throat. “Excuse me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.” His hand kept mine steady as a tremor started in my arms. He must have felt it, because he took my chin between his other thumb and forefinger. “Dear heart, I’m fine. It was just a cough.”

A waitress approached our table with a broom and dustpan. “Everything okay?” She asked. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

I couldn’t take my eyes off Harry, who faced the waitress and dazzled her with a smile. “It’s my fault. I’m getting over an… illness and my wife was worried. It was an accident.”

The waitress paused her sweeping to smile at us. “Well, it’s good you’re feeling better. You’re so fortunate to have each other. Have you folks ordered yet? Let me get that started for you.”

I took a breath and replayed Harry’s words in my mind. “Just a cough.” And I hoped that it was true. Dinner passed in a blur. We talked a little, avoiding the subject that hung between us. Just a cough. Ignoring the questions and memories only made me think about them more. Just a cough.

Harry drove us home and distracted me by singing along with the radio. He’d died a matter of days ago, so he still recognized the music that played. He opened the door for me and put his hand on the small of my back to guide me through. “Why don’t we relax the rest of the night?” He asked. “You seem tense. I can rub your shoulders.”

I kissed his cheek. “A relaxing night sounds perfect. Let me go change.”

I stripped out of my dress and washed my face in the bathroom. Through the open doorway, I heard Harry cough again, twice. I pulled on my pajama pants and stepped into the kitchen where I found him washing his hands. He smiled at me innocently. “How long… Is there a new episode of our show?”

I paused. “I’m not sure. I haven’t kept up with it.”

Harry cleared his throat again and shut off the faucet. “Let’s have a look.”

We dropped onto the couch, and he lifted the remote to turn on the television and changed the channel to our favorite. But I didn’t notice what was on, my stare fixated on the bright red mark on his wrist. He’d missed it when he washed his hands. Fresh blood.

“Harry,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”

He tried to smile. “I wish I had answers for you. I truly do. But it’s like the waitress said, we should be grateful for this second chance.”

“What are we going to tell your family?”

“The truth.”

“What are we going to tell my family?”

“Celine let’s not worry yet. No matter what, we’ll be together. I’ll never leave your side again.”

Again. Again.

He would die again. Even if the cancer and pneumonia was gone, even if it never came back, even if he didn’t have an accident. We could have children, grow old, retire together and he would still die of age. His organic body would succumb to the fate we all had in store.

And I would be at the side of his hospital bed again. I would hold his hand and choke back my tears, strong for him in his final moments. I would push the fear and sorrow down so his final thoughts wouldn’t be of worrying for me. I would watch the life drain from his eyes and hear his wheezing, ghostly breaths. I would see his chest stop moving, hear the silence in his ribs.

The doctor would make it official with a declaration of time of death. The nurses would pat my shoulder. The funeral home director would give me his sad eyes. There would be more leftovers on the kitchen counter. The house would become dark and cold.

Again. It would all happen again. That was the real fear that went unnamed, unspoken between us.

That night, I lie awake in bed. Harry slumbered soundly at my side, the rise and fall of his chest and the gentle caress of his breath against my hair assured me that he still lived. Yet every time he paused between breaths my heart skipped. Was it happening? Was it time?

Memories of that miserable, rainy day in the hospital flashed over and over in my mind. Parts of it were a fog to me, like how I got home that evening and what I did the morning after. It had only been days ago, but the memories were blank. The only part I remembered was the worst of it. His stillness, his blank eyes, the chill that settled over him.

I sat forward. Harry didn’t stir.

I couldn’t go through it. Not again. Why would he come back just to torment me again? Shouldn’t I be grateful? Shouldn’t I be happy?

But I wasn’t. One day of bliss couldn’t take away the dread of knowing what was to come.

I took my pillow from behind me and turned to Harry in bed. I held the pillow over his face then pressed down. My hands dug into throat. I felt it spasm as he tried to cough, to open his airway. The muscles and tendons in his neck writhed and snapped beneath my hands. His arms twitched and flailed, and he gagged. But the sound and the sight were muffled by the pillow.

He stopped fighting after a time. He must have understood why I did it. He always knew what I needed.

When I was sure that he was dead once more, I slid off his body and down to the floor.

Panic threatened to settle in, but I pushed it back with the memory of the pills still in the bathroom cabinet. No one had thought to take them from me. They must have assumed I was stable enough not to abuse them. Maybe I had been, before Harry came back.

I returned to Harry’s unmoving body after I swallowed the pills. In a way, it was exactly like the first time.

I would never have to go through it again.