I Don’t Like it When My Wife’s Away

We share mealtimes: breakfasts, dinners, desserts for sure. Saturdays and Sundays are days we eat together. Burritos, baseball and the BBC, baby. The world walks by our window. We take evening walks. Around the block, we talk and don’t talk at all.

We fall asleep side by side, and get up sometimes at the same time. Daily, this happens until it doesn’t. You planned and took a trip without me. Which is good. I’m fine. I can make food. Some things will turn out wonderful, but I won’t be able to re-create them.

I play-all episodes of a DVD I haven’t seen until I’ve played them all. I watch the Giants when they’re on and picture you next to me. The name of the Giants new hitter is Dickerson, so when he gets a hit they chant from the dugout Dick! Dick! Dick! Dick!

Sunday is hard, and so is the Saturday that you come home late. I straighten the apartment. I wash the dishes and do the laundry—three loads. I vacuum all around. I drink too much coffee and get a headache that won’t go away. You aren’t there to complaint to, telling me to drink more water.

For seven days I wake up tired because I can’t sleep without you. When you get home will it go back to the way it was? Soon we’ll be close —it seems like forever since you left for Lake Superior. I don’t like it. I don’t like it when my wife’s away. Stay close