CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Alex
Now
Joshua stayed in that bed.
The numbers did not climb. They did not crash. Days stacked up without becoming a direction.
I packed Arthur’s lunch. I signed the school forms. I sat in the chair by the window and felt the particular blank of a woman waiting for a man she did not miss enough.
I wondered why.
I did not give the wondering a name.
One day, they scheduled a discharge. On a Friday. Arthur drew a sign. Martina washed the sheets on his bed twice.
He died on a Tuesday.
Two days before he was supposed to come home.
I had asked God to decide. God had decided.
One evening after Arthur was in bed, Martina found me in the kitchen.
“He’s doing well,” she said.
“Arthur?” I poured a glass of water I didn’t want. “He’s too careful.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“He shouldn’t have to be careful,” I said. “He’s young.”
She said nothing. She didn’t need to.
I set the glass down. “I keep waiting for this house to feel different.”
“Different how.”
“Like a thing ended,” I said. “It has. He’s gone. The days still look the same.”
She was quiet.
“I can’t go anywhere,” I said. “Arthur needs the days to look the same a little longer.”
I looked at her.
She looked back. And waited.
“I don’t know why I feel so little,” I said. “That’s the part I can’t say out loud anywhere else.”
“You are a decent person,” she said.
“I don’t know what I want,” I said.
“I know.”
“I keep waiting to feel something that makes sense.”
Martina folded the dish towel and set it on the counter. “One thing at a time,” she said.
I nodded.
One thing at a time.