“It doesn’t matter,” I say out loud. I toss the pillow to the side and get up. At the closet, my fingers rush past hangers and then slip over Chris’s lone tie I can’t bring myself to donate. I pause and traverse the slick fabric. It slides through my fingers with ease. I’d given him this tie on our first Valentine’s Day together, a memento from Marshall Field’s. It was red silk, and I loved putting it around his neck, or sometimes letting him find me after a long day at work in the tie and nothing else. I smile from the memory. I push past the tie. It’s the little things that get me the most these days: a whiff of his cologne on a passing stranger. A similar laugh. His last voice mail.

I’d listened to that message so often those first few months after he died that I had it memorized. I’d only just found out I was pregnant. I close my eyes and replay it in my head. His voice is as clear as if he’s standing right next to me. “I know you’re still sleeping because that little monster is sucking the life out of you, but just know this: I love you both and will see you tonight. And little monster, if you’re listening, go easy on your mother, please. She’s not as tough as she looks. Bye, Bec.”

Bye, Bec.

His very last words, and I hadn’t been able to tell him good-bye too. My fingers hesitate on a blouse and return to the tie. I tug it free from its hanger and wrap it around my neck, expertly tying a full Windsor knot. I close my eyes again, remembering. The morning Chris died, he’d kissed me good-bye. I’d not shaken myself fully awake, which is one of the greatest regrets of my life.

His breath smelled like coffee, his skin clean and freshly shaven for work. He’d called me on the way to the bus stop just a few minutes later. Even a year after his death, I try to make myself change the outcome. It’s a dangerous game I play when I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself: if I had woken up when he kissed me, would it have made a difference? If I’d answered the phone when he called, would he have stepped just a few feet to the right and missed the car that hit him? What if he’d not taken the time to kiss me good-bye or leave that message? Would he have arrived at his stop in time to catch the previous bus?

These questions always threaten to rattle the normalcy I’m trying to tether into place. And I know they’re not questions, not really—they’re torture devices aimed to keep me paralyzed by grief.