Here Without You
Sheanna turned the key in the lock and barely managed to turn the knob. Her arms were full of groceries. She pushed the door open with a foot, sticking her key ring between her teeth as she grabbed the bag she had been forced to set on the ground next to her. She kicked the door closed behind and walked forward a couple of feet. The house was dark. She couldn't see a thing. Flipping a couple of light switches with her chin, she managed to make it to the kitchen. She dumped the groceries on the counter and opened her mouth, trying to drop her keys into her hand. She grabbed them and caught them, but somehow mysteriously they ended up on the floor only a second later. Reaching down to get them, she walked back to the door and locked it against the chill night outside.
She started to take off her knitted sweater, calling out into the empty house while she did so, "I'm home!" She brushed lint off her long- sleeved black shirt, "Ri? I'm home." She became irritated at the lack of response. Returning to the kitchen, she started to unload the food and put it away. "It's not as if this were unexpected, you idiot," she told herself, "After all, there's no one here to answer when you say that. Idiot." As she put away some food in the refrigerator, a picture over the sink caught her eye. It was a protesting Sheanna in the process of being pulled into the lap of a laughing man with beautiful shining eyes. She hadn't wanted to be in that picture. It was just supposed to be a picture of him. Of Rilan. She leaned back against the half-closed refrigerator door, falling further out of balance as it shut all the way. Her toes slid over the edge of her sandals. She smiled and decided not to take them off. After all, there was no one around to be mad at her for walking around the house in shoes. Tears slid down her cheeks. She let her throat burn and tighten as she held back sobs, carefully breathing slowly in and out. She could cry. No one there to keep her from that. Growing up, she'd become practiced at suppressing sobs so her parents wouldn't hear. Everything had upset her growing up, and it had been too much of a bother to have to explain why she was crying when all she really wanted to do was lie there weeping. Besides, she hadn't always had an explanation, a reason. That was irrelevant, though, wasn't it? Her childhood strangeness had nothing to do with this. This had a cause. This had a purpose. People tried to understand, pretended to understand. They didn't get it. She wasn't supposed to be mourning. She hated mourning. Mourning was selfish. If people truly believed that their loved ones were going to a better place, then being upset was selfish. Others had demanded that Rilan's funeral be sad and somber, not the festive party it should be. Celebrating his move from this sorry world to a much better place. She'd tried to make it festive, a cheerful sending-off. She hadn't shed a tear at the service, at least. Rilan's death hadn't hit her then. It hadn't hit her, what it would mean. That it would mean coming home to an empty house every night. That it would mean that she wouldn't get to see him smile again until she, too, died. She wouldn't get to make him laugh. He wouldn't get annoyed with her because she wore her shoes inside and made shoe imprints in the carpet. She hadn't realized then that it meant they wouldn't pray together anymore. Wouldn't break bread in the morning, a little ritual she'd started between the two of them. They wouldn't go out together, competing in chivalry to each other. She wouldn't win the race and open the door for him, wouldn't greet him when they met together in the middle of a busy day with a gentlemanly bow and kiss to his wedding ring. He wouldn't ever do the same for her again. She had to hope. She had to hope. She had to wait on heaven, finish whatever it was she was supposed to do here and get there, to her two greatest loves: God and Rilan. She was lured to fall into permanent mourning, going over and over again tapes from their wedding and flipping through old photographs. Instead, she still went to work. She'd started back to work the day after the funeral. She'd been going to work during the preparations for the funeral. However, she'd been fine then. It hadn't hit her. Hadn't really, truly hit her until tonight. A hundred days. She hadn't realized it, but she'd been counting the days since he'd died. It had been a hundred days. Somehow she knew that she had been mourning and upset all along. She'd just hidden it from herself. So it must have been at least a thousand times that she'd lied, saying she was "fine", telling herself and her friends that it was okay. She pulled a cup from her cabinet, a long and tall one for alcoholic drinks. She went over to the refrigerator and got ice. And got water. She sat down, drinking water and hiccupping, finally sobbing. Last night, or rather, this morning, since she'd been up late working on a case, she'd dreamt of Rilan. At some point, she'd remembered that he was dead and it had to be a dream, but then she reached out and touched his hand, clasping it in hers, feeling the touch of his skin. So real. Her crying grew harder. Her phone must have been ringing, but she hadn't heard it; instead, she heard the answering machine as it came on. Sheanna and Rilan had done the message together. She'd always been too "busy" to change it.
"Hey, this is Anji," whoever was calling said. Anji. A confidante. Someone to whom Sheanna told everything, though she didn't know about today's mourning yet. Sheanna got up and ran to the phone, not hearing whatever else Anji was saying in her message. She grabbed the receiver, dropping it and having to bend over and pick it up again before she could manage to turn it on. By then, Anji had finished her message and hung up, evidenced by the blaring sound of the ring tone. Sheanna sagged, unable to summon up the energy to call her back. Sighing, she decided against staying up and putting any more work into her cases tonight. Instead, she finished putting away the groceries. She turned off the lights. She made her way by blind faith in the Lord's protection to her bedroom, not tripping on anything only as a grace of God. She pulled down the sheets and fell into bed. Automatically, she reached over to the other side to put an arm around Rilan's sleeping body. Instead, her hand fell on cold bed sheets. She cried into her pillow. By the time she finally fell asleep, into dreams of her dead husband, the pillow was soaked with salty tears, made chill by the air conditioning.