The Best Worst Thing

I open my eyes to impenetrable darkness. The air feels thick and heavy with electricity, and my body is soaked with perspiration. I strain to see through the shadows. My bedroom is filled with a suffocating heat that burns my skin; yet I shiver, chilled to the bone, alone under the blankets, hoping this might finally be the night he shows up. The hot, oppressive air pins me to my pillow. As my vision adjusts to the night, my eyes see that the room is empty, but my instincts say otherwise. The hairs on my arms stand on end, and I stare into the blackness, sensing him and straining for a sign, some hint of his presence. My pulse pounds. I can feel my heart thumping and racing in my chest, anxious and confused, excited and hopeful. I am not breathing for fear that any exchange of air will disrupt the flow of energy in the room—Todd’s energy. I am not afraid. I feel his particles vibrating around and through me, his spirit hovering over me, yet I still see nothing. But I feel it and know it’s him. Finally, after months of waiting, he’s showing himself. “Todd, are you here?” I whisper, my eyes welling up with tears. I wait anxiously for a response, a shifting of light, a faint breeze, something to know he’s acknowledging me. “Are you okay?” I whisper again, hoping I’ll get an affirmation that he is happy on the other side. The heat in the room intensifies as I wait for him, missing him so badly. I scan the room. Did I see the curtain move? Was that a sound? I listen and look, willing something to happen. The air changes suddenly—an abrupt cooling and calming. The feeling of electricity relents, and I sense him leaving. “That’s not enough!” I sob, my heart breaking. But he’s gone. Then, like a bittersweet kiss goodbye, Brooke babbles in her crib next door, and I know he’s with her now. She’s just a year old, awake and cooing as her daddy makes his presence known to her. Moments later she is quiet, and silence punctuates the fact that he is gone and I am alone again in our bed with only emptiness filling the space beside me. Knowing I won’t sleep again this night, I get up. I walk by his closet, and my heart leaps: the bifold doors are ajar. They were shut when I went to bed just two hours ago. As on most other nights, I had squeezed inside the tiny space to inhale his scent, letting the familiar, sweet musk of his body and cologne wash over me. I would curl up on the floor on top of the clothes stacked there—sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for hours—and then pull the doors shut, not wanting to let any of his smells escape. But now the doors are open. Todd was here, trying to communicate with me, to let me know he’s okay. Todd, are you still here? I’ve spent so many nights waiting and longing for you to visit me somehow—as a ghost, in a dream—hoping for any sort of connection or sign to prove you’re still with me. I wanted to apologize and make peace. To let you know of all my regrets about our relationship before you died. To express my frustrations with how you changed—and how I changed. And now you’ve shown that you were here, and I feel worse than ever. Like I’ve lost you all over again. The pain and regret I feel are eating me alive, and I don’t know what to do. Regret. That bitter feeling has haunted me and kept me awake night after night for months. How do I reconcile my past wrongs against someone when he’s dead? That’s the question I can’t answer, the puzzle that has stolen my sleep since Todd died. Every night I lie in bed, unable to close my eyes, wondering how I can possibly move forward. I know I wasn’t the best wife I could have been to him, and he wasn’t the best husband he could have been to me. How do I get past the regret of what was and what could have been? How can I find the words that I didn’t get to say before he left so suddenly?