What do I do with the hours? I don’t know. Sit, or lie facing the window in our bedroom, watching the sunlight travel in an arc across my bedroom floor. It’s abstract, the passage of time. Not a real thing. It feels like a movie montage, where the widow lies in bed and the camera remains still, a time-lapse of sunlight moving across the floor—it’s real. It’s me. I’m that widow.

A widow. I’m a widow.

Then it begins—I feel something, at that realization.

In my rotation in the ER, a gunshot victim said he didn’t feel pain at first, more of an impact, a physical blow but not pain.

This feels like that. The first blow, the impact before nerve endings have a chance to kick in and relay the existence of agony.

14 days

“….Closing on it tomorrow,” Tess is saying. “I was thinking I’d move in with you.”

I blink. “Oh.” I’m physically present, but mentally absent. “Wait, what?”

She touches my cheek. “I’m closing on the house tomorrow. I’ve sold it fully furnished. I’ve packed up my clothes and the shit I care about, hired a company to clean it out to create a blank slate for the new owners.”

I have a real, original thought for the first time in two weeks. “You sold your house?”

“Yeah.” She’s very patient with me.

Another thought occurs. “Wait. Your divorce. I promised I’d be there.”

She gives me a small, sad smile. “It was the day before…um…”

“Say it.”

“The hearing was the day before Adrian…ahhh…passed away.” Her voice breaks on that phrase. “I went in three-day-old yoga pants, no underwear, no bra, a stained T-shirt, and my fuzzy pink slippers. I told the judge I didn’t give a single shit about anything at all, I just wanted to be done, divorced.”

“Was he there?” It’s like my brain is being operated by something other than me, functioning for me.

Tess has been there for me through this, and I have to give back to her. I have to be her friend too. But where this thoughtfulness is coming from, I don’t know. I’m still numb.

She nods. “Yeah, he was. He looked like he was trying to look guilty, or chagrined, or something, but couldn’t quite manage it.” She shrugs. “It’s weird how little of a fuck I give about him. Like, I’m not even sad. I’m barely even angry anymore. I’m not, like, happy, or relieved. I didn’t want to be a divorcee. But now it’s over and I’m just…ready to move on. I just simply do not have a single feeling to spare for Clint McAlister.”

“How is Yvette?”