This is the only other short one I could find. My other stories are on a disk somewhere in my mess. Not sure paragraph breaks will transfer or if it will just show up as gobbledygook but here goes....
Left Behind
Jennie Kozlowski
Adele had been grieving without cease since Ed’s death two days ago. She could
sleep for only brief periods, ten minutes, sometimes thirty, and the sleep was not restful; It
was uneasy and fitful and she would awaken moaning, sometimes crying out, tangled in
the blanket from jerking and thrashing in her sleep, and lying crosswise at the foot of the
bed, having been reliving his death - which she had been the only one to witness - as she
slept. The dreams were, over and over again, that exact moment he fell and never rose
again to come back to her. She was one of those who didn’t usually remember their
dreams, but these she did, and they were awful and vivid. It probably didn’t help that she
was sleeping in a bed at a neighbors’ house who didn’t think she should be left alone in her
own house until the children, who were all away, two at college and the third, who lived
and worked in another state, could get there.
One moment he was there, walking beside her, talking to her, and the next, he had
dropped with a soft thud on the thick layer of aromatic pine needles that cushioned the path
they walked on side by side. He had died of a sudden brain aneurysm. The very moment he
dropped, he was already dead. When Christmas came three months from now, she didn’t
know it yet, but she would have a hard time because the scent of pine everywhere indoors
would remind her of that moment, and the moments after, when she had lain beside him
crying on that soft bed of needles, knowing he was gone, until neighbors heard her
mournful keening and came looking and found them both.
She and Ed were a good match. They were both the outdoorsy type and they were
both active. They loved their house and its location, with the vast expanse of woods behind
it and they went for walks in those woods every evening, even in cold weather. Even rain
didn’t stop them, unless it was severe.
She was the type to rise in the morning almost fully awake and already making
plans by the time her feet hit the floor, but Ed was more of a slow riser and it took him
longer to rouse from the grip of sleep. He sometimes woke and then dozed off again, but
she rarely did. She would lay there with her head on his chest, and watch him, comforted
by the rhythmic rise and fall, and she would feel a subtle tickle of love and adoration in her
own chest for this good man who had rescued her at a very bad time in her life that she
mostly didn’t think about anymore.
She missed him when he went to work. She loved having breakfast together every
morning, but always in the back of her mind was the knowledge that he would go to work
soon, leaving her alone in the house now that the children had moved out. She found ways
to occupy her time, but sighed a lot throughout the day, wanting him to come home soon.
Their nightly walks were mostly silent, a time to think and reflect, enjoying each
other’s company without words. Sometimes though, she knew from the moment Ed came
home, that he would talk. She could tell by a pensiveness on his face that he couldn’t hide
from her, and a tenseness in his shoulders, that something was worrying his mind. On these
nights, she didn’t have to speak. He didn’t want or need her to. He just needed her there
beside him to listen as they walked and he worked through the problem aloud.
There were differences between them, of course, and she didn’t always understand
Ed and he didn’t always understand her, but they allowed each other their idiosyncrasies,
and any annoyances or impatiences they felt toward each other were small.
There were rarely terse words in the air between them, though there were a few
times, when their relationship was new, and one time, when she had broken his mother’s
vase. It was the most upset she had ever seen Ed and she felt awful about the accident. She
was never extremely graceful for a female, had always been a bit clumsy. She should have
been more careful with something that meant so much to Ed. But neither of them could
ever stay upset for long.
Her thermostat ran a little warm and his ran a little cold. Even in summer, his feet
were icy at night and in his sleep, those cold feet would find her under the covers, seeking
her warmth. She didn’t really mind; it was just one of those very small annoyances that
were far outweighed by love.
During Ed’s burial, she was bereft and didn’t want to leave his gravesite. They
gave her some time, but eventually, they began pleading with her to get into the van so
they could leave. They were worried about her, thought she wasn’t eating enough, could
see her sleep was tortured.
That night, after they buried him, she woke before dawn had begun to creep
forward and felt she needed to go visit his grave once more. She just couldn’t sleep without
Ed’s cold feet searching for her under the covers, without the sound of him breathing. She
rose, left their now lonely bed, realized she was thirsty and went to the bathroom to get a
drink of water, had a moment of worry that her stomach wouldn’t keep even that down.
The nausea passed and she left through the back door, careful not to wake the children. It
had been nice having them all back in the house again at the same time.
The graveyard fence was shut and locked and she searched for a way in, panicked
that she might not find one, but she finally did. She walked past headstones, some very
large, some smaller, until she came to the unmarked grave they had all stood around that
morning.
Adele shivered. Her legs shook, then gave out, and she collapsed on the ground
above Ed, remembering the one time they had been apart for longer than a day. Ed’s
mother had died and she had not been able to go with him to the funeral. He had gone
alone and grieved alone and she hadn’t been there with him. It was a very long five days as
she waited for him to come back home.
She remembered vacations at the lake, swimming and laughing with the children,
splashing and water games, all of them lying on towels on the warm dock afterwards,
drying off and dozing in the sun.
A fine mist had begun at some point and she realized she was wet and that the
ground beneath her had turned to a layer of mud. Her grief had exhausted her and she
didn’t care about the mud. She lay there with the earthy smell filling her nostrils. She
wished she could smell Ed through the earth.
I can’t survive this. I need you to come back to me. She heard the moan as it
escaped her throat, heard it grow into a wail of pain, knew somewhere in the back of her
mind that she was coming apart, but was helpless to move.
Sometime after the sun rose and the air warmed a little, she heard the sound of the
gate being unlocked and rolled back, but no one saw or bothered her. She just wanted to
lay there until she died of her grief.
Some more time passed and then she was pretty sure she heard their van in the
distance. Sounded like it. They had come here, knowing when they woke and couldn’t find
her that this was where she had gone. She heard as they got out, closed the doors, began
walking over. She heard their tears and them calling to her, “Adele, please get in the car
and come home with us.” Some more time passed. She heard them whispering. When they
hooked the leash onto her collar, she didn’t resist, and then, something happened inside of
Adele when they all knelt and began drying her wet fur with a towel, these children she
loved so much and who loved her back, who she had grown up and played with. There was
a line of sorts, behind it, grief, in front of it, the life and warmth of these three children, her
children. Adele wagged her tail for the first time since Ed’s death, and then she ran with
them to the van, just like old times.