I woke with a headache in the middle of the night and was going to ask Adrienne to pass me my bottle of aspirin. And then I remembered.
I turned on the bedside lamp and rolled over to the other side of the bed. Adrienne’s side. The empty side.
The aspirin bottle was in the bedside drawer and as I shook out two tablets and dry-swallowed them I wondered why I’d always kept my medication in the bedside drawer on Adrienne’s side of the bed when I could easily have kept them on my side without occasionally having to wake Adrienne up in the middle of the night when I had my headache spells.
I flopped back in bed, lying on Adrienne’s side and inhaling the faint scent of her cologne. The fragrance of summer oranges so faint sometimes I believed I imagined it. And to think I had hated the scent all these years, wrinkling my nose when Adrienne would hug me before I left for work or when I would play the role of the dutiful husband at my company’s annual end of the year party and lean in intermittently to whisper some nonsense in her ear and make her feel like she was a part of the party.
I never even asked her the name of the fragrance she wore. Or her favourite colour. I’d always assumed it was green, the colour of her eyes.
There was a whole lot I didn’t know about my wife.
I inhaled deeply and willed myself to sleep.
I woke up late at about ten in the morning. The sun was already bright outside but the curtains were still drawn in my bedroom, putting it in a state of semi-darkness.
I remained in bed a while longer. I was already too late for the company’s quarterly board meeting so why hurry?
Adrienne would have woken me up, I thought. She’d have opened the curtains and let in the day and tapped me awake.
I sighed and reached across to my side for my cell phone. The battery was out. I’d forgotten to plug it in before going to bed last night. It was Adrienne who usually remembered that sort of thing.
Several people from work would have tried to reach me on my telephone this morning, and some of them might hope I’d died in my sleep after the operator repeatedly informed them my phone was switched off. My phone was usually never switched off much less this early in the morning. Maybe it was my subconscious tapping out morse code to my ego…
I discarded my cell phone on the bedside drawer where it had been all night and got out of bed. Halfway through a shave I just stopped and watched my reflection. Really looking and seeing beyond the laugh wrinkles, the studied expression, the stubborn jaw line and square chin that wouldn’t give in to sixty-three years of aging; the confident way in which I held my head.
In the mirror was a face half-covered with shaving mousse, but through my eyes was a sad, broken person. An acknowledgment I was letting myself make for the first time.
I got dressed but couldn’t find my red and blue polka dot tie. So I changed into a tee-shirt and jeans instead.
Adrienne would have known where to find that tie.
I had bread with cheese and fruit juice for breakfast. I kept forgetting to get coffee.
I missed the smell of waffles or frying bacon or eggs. I missed the scent of summer oranges…
I remember this day exactly four weeks ago. I’d woken at the crack of dawn, showered and come downstairs to the sweet aroma of frying bacon. I’d thought nothing of it. It had been nothing special.
I remember Adrienne pouring me fruit juice from a pitcher while she yapped away with our neighbour Mrs. Simmons on the phone. She hadn’t realized it when the glass was full and poured orange juice all over my black pants.
I had been more than a little irritated at her clumsiness. She always seemed to trip over herself.
I particularly remember one uncharitable thought: What had I seen in this woman? Why had I married her?
Now I knew…
I got in my Jag and drove around town for a while, not really having a direction in mind, until I found myself at the town’s only cemetery.
I remained in the car for a very long time. It was an unplanned visit so I hadn’t brought flowers.
I got out of the car finally and walked down rows and rows of bleached marble headstones, head down, hands stashed deep in my pockets till I found her where she lay, watched over by a small cement cherub.

IN LOVING MEMORY
Adrienne Cohen

1954 – 2013

Wife, Mother, Friend

I got on my knees and was quiet for a very long time. And then I cried and cried.
‘I’m sorry Adrienne…’ I wailed over and over again.
The winds stayed still…

Following