“That’s enough, Janet!” I hollered. My throat hurt from screaming.

“Murray!” Her shrill voice shot back.

I loved her. I truly did – I always have, but living in isolation with her was more than I could bear. She just kept nagging. It never stopped. A constant stream of things I did wrong or tasks I’d forgotten fell from her lips all day long.

Every.

Single.

Day.

When the pandemic first struck, I thought being at home all the time could be nice. I would finally have the chance to finish some of my woodworking projects – a hobby of mine for decades. At any given moment, I had about eighteen unfinished projects laying around, but I was always too busy with work to complete any of them. When the pandemic first struck, I thought I would finally be able to finish the projects I had long since begun.

What a dream that was.

I could still hear Janet shouting from inside as I reluctantly set down my tools, just as I had the day prior and the day before that. Just as I had for the last 247 days. I began carving a tally under my work bench. At first, I thought it was funny, but it turned into a cruel joke against myself. I took out my exacto knife and carved the 248^th line before going inside to endure the torment of the inevitable hour-long ramble. The stream of nags and accusations never seemed to end, but I knew I stood a better chance of returning to my shop if she could see my face while she screamed. I sulked into the living room where I could hear her voice clearly and sharp as she went on and on about the dishes.

Wait, when did it become about the dishes? Wasn’t she just going off about the laundry? I swear, this began about the laundry.

“For Christ’s sake,” I shouted over top of her, “I’ll do them right now if it’ll shut you the hell up!”

I loved her. I mean it. For years, she had been my rock. She was an outstandingly confident and capable woman who typically had a habit of making me fall deeper in love with her every damn day. When we were able to live our own lives more completely; when we weren’t forced to always be cooped up together, our relationship was effortless.

Normally, she is fiercely independent and always has something on the go, so being caged in her own home for months had frazzled her. She doesn’t operate well when her life is idle and so the restrictions of the pandemic made her obsessed with keeping busy. The only way she was able to occupy her time was with housework, and in her state of frustration, it was never done. We haven’t reorganized the linen closet in more than a decade, surely there is a better way to shove towels into a handful of shelves.

I was able to remain patient for the first few months, as I was empathetic of her static stress, but after a while, it just became too much. After a while, I couldn’t help but to push back. She expected me to be on the same page as her, but our noses were stuck in completely separate books. She expected my idle hands to itch for things to do, and they did, but my hands itched for cedar and birch. I longed for the aroma of sawdust until the clouds caused me to sneeze, and I ached for the frustration of tweezing splinters from my palms before I continued to sand. She saw my hobby as something that could be done later, and housework as something that should be done now, and it created tension. The friction built into a fire and so, my days became loud, angry, and long.

I thrashed the dishes in the sink dramatically to make a point. The endless sea of her words pierced my neck and carved into my back like hot blades as I grabbed the next plate and scrubbed a few layers of ceramic off the top. My blood boiled, my teeth clenched, my hands shook, and then I just…

tuned out…

Her words became muffled, muted, and far away, and my body went into autopilot. The memory of my fingers and thumbs lathered the dishes in bubbles as my mind pulled me twenty-six years backwards. Suddenly, I was seated in an uncomfortable chair at a dimly lit restaurant across from a nervous, young Janet, who had finally allowed me to take her out on a date. I heard again her twinkling laughter after I had made a poor joke about a spelling error I found in the menu. I felt again, the moment I knew I captivated her, and I cozied into the warmth of my rapidly growing crush.

Woosh

We were strolling hand in hand down the sidewalks of the city, a month or so into our relationship. I loved this walk. She looked up and pointed to some birds fluttering among each other betwixt the skyscrapers, dazzling us both with their dance.

Woosh

Playfully fighting over the remote, the night after our one-year anniversary. She was bored of wrestling and I had no desire to watch reality TV. Our struggle over the remote turned into an epic pillow fight. No, an epic pillow battle! We chased each other through every room of the house and every pillow I owned was destroyed by the end of the night. We were crying with laughter later in bed, our heads propped up on pillowcases stuffed with old t-shirts.

Woosh

Two years later, back in that restaurant from our first date. Same table, same uncomfortable chair. Every person in the room clapped when she said yes.

Woosh

Her smile was enchanting as she approached me. I noticed that first, long before the dress, the veil, the flowers in her hands… My bones became rubber and my stomach fluttered. She couldn’t wait – she kissed me as soon as she got close enough to reach my lips. The ceremony had barely begun, we hadn’t even said our vows yet. We were both so excited to spend the rest of our lives together…

When I re-entered reality, I found myself in our living room, Janet’s nose inches from mine. I could feel her spit splatter my face when she spoke. The next thing I caught was

“…and you need to address the fireplace. It’s a fucking disaster.”

Impulsively, I roared, “I said that’s ENOUGH!”

…and I pushed her.

I didn’t mean to.

I didn’t even push her hard, but she stumbled. She lost her footing and she fell backwards, headfirst. Her eyes widened and her jaw gaped, so did mine. We locked eyes and shared helplessness, confusion, and fear between our gazes. She bounced high enough to miss every third or forth step as she fell down the flight of stairs. She landed on her shoulder blades, then her head, then her arm, and finally, on her back. Her limbs floated through the air like paper before landing scattered on the cold, hardwood floor at the bottom of the steps. A halo of red grew rapidly around her short, straight, soft, umber-brown hair.

At the top of the stairs, I stood stunned and silent, utterly unable to move. Time swam against the current, the way it would in a nightmare.

“Janet?” I whispered.

I don’t know what I was thinking, I was smart enough to realize she wasn’t going to stand up and tell me she was okay, but that’s what I wanted to happen. I wanted her to start laughing about the fall, to crack a joke about how ridiculous she must have looked as she tumbled. I wanted her to dust herself off and meet me at the top of the stairs. Then, our embrace could have broken the tension and it could have melted away my guilt.

I staggered down the stairs and dropped to my knees by her side. My breath was short, and my vision was blurry.

“Janet, get up, sweetheart,” I croaked. My hand held hers and I softly squeezed. “You’re okay. A couple of band-aids aught to patch you right up!”

Deafening silence.

“Sweetheart, please. You need to get up. I’ll- I’ll get on the fireplace! Okay? Okay, I’ll start with the fireplace, but I need you to get up first. Okay? Just as soon as you do, I’ll-” My words broke into a sob.

Desperately, I cradled her in my arms. My fingers caressed her hair and my palm held steady, the back of her head. I rested her chin on my shoulder and my other arm wrapped tight around her waist. I held her close and soothed her with my voice, softly trying to speak breath back into her lungs as I waited helplessly to hear the music of her heartbeat.

I don’t remember washing up the blood, but I know that I must have, as there was no evidence of it anymore. I brushed out Janet’s hair and sat her on the couch downstairs. I poured her a glass of wine and staged a novel in her lap, leaving her to her own as I checked off some of the boxes from her long list of chores.

Hours went by before I returned to find her. I thought that if I waited long enough, I would be greeted by her smile and I could delight her by telling her how many things I had completed. I thought if I had done a handful of the tasks she had been asking me to finish, she could be proud of me and I could fix our fight, then everything would be okay again.

When I returned to her, I found that she had toppled over. Her head was resting on the cushion next to her hips and the book had fallen from her lap. I stood before her motionless, staring at her limp body for an hour, waiting to catch a glimpse of movement.

She’s dead.

It was impossible for her to be dead. I remembered distinctly waking up next to her that very morning. I remembered her grumbling at the sunlight beaming through our bedroom window and I remembered she had her eggs sunny-side-up for breakfast.

She’s dead.

She couldn’t be dead. She was just telling me about how she wanted to rearrange the furniture upstairs, and she hadn’t even been able to see how much more open the room looked after the love seat had been pushed back against the wall.

She’s dead.

Oh God, she’s dead. I killed my wife. I didn’t mean to kill her; I would never mean to… I loved her. I didn’t even push her that hard. She lost her footing and she fell.

A judge would surely believe me.

Or…

Or the police would find a dead woman with a busted open skull and they would find a tally of 248 short lines carved underneath my workbench. The facts would be that the pandemic closed us in our home together for months and provided me with no witnesses and no alibi. The conclusions drawn from that would seem far more solid than the truth. I would be charged with murder. I would find new isolation in prison.

A shrill chime startled my spiralling thoughts and snapped my attention to Janet’s cellphone. A notification lit up on her screen, a text from her sister.

Shit.

I didn’t know what to do. What was I supposed to do? Should I call Jill and tell her what happened? How could I break this to her? Jill would not handle it well. She would want to get the police involved, and I couldn’t have that. I felt sick. My body flushed with heat, and nausea bubbled in my gut.

Then, I realized…

I was the only one that knew that she was dead. What if no one else had to? The pandemic had no end in sight, and it was a readily available excuse for her to never be seen or visited. I could keep her alive on social media and the state of the world would give me enough time to figure out a plan.

I could keep her alive.

I grabbed Janet’s phone.

To: Jill 7:42PM

Hey, thanks for telling me! Do

you know how long she will

need rest for?

It’s been 106 days since Janet’s fall. I began a new tally.

For the first few weeks, I spent my days floating through our home like a ghost, numb to the world around me. As if living on a conveyor belt, I cycled through mundane, absentminded tasks, unaware at any given moment of exactly what it was I was doing. Coasting through the motions of living, at some point, I guess I bought dog food. For a few days, every morning and evening, I poured a new cup of kibble on top of the last before the overflowing silver bowl on the floor finally caught my attention and reminded me that it had been years since we last had a dog. At night, I found myself alert with anxiety, ashamed of my secret and fearful of being discovered. Even after I was able to finally drift off to sleep, it was only ever a moment or so later that I would startle awake in a hot sweat. Shadows became whispers, and I grew more paranoid of each car that I heard drive past our house as I laid silent and still into the late hours of every quiet and endless night.

After the emptiness thawed from my heart, I discovered every ounce of pain I had been swallowing. My veins constricted my bones and stomach acid boiled the stones that had been stirring in the pit of my core. My muscles seized and I crippled into a ball on the floor, where I spent weeks wailing and pleading for Janet’s life back through the stream of snot that bubbled and strung between my lips. I exhausted myself by crying and found myself empty once again. The emptiness was different this time. It was heavier, and for another month or so, I was unable to lift myself from where I burrowed in my bed.

Eventually, emptiness became numbness and as time drew on, living with Janet became easier. I would spend the days in my shop, and it wasn’t long before I had finished the night stands that had been set aside for years. They turned out beautifully, and I knew Janet would have loved the way they tied our bedroom together. Between sanding and sculpting and staining, I would grab Janet’s phone and take care of the notifications that had piled up. At first, I panicked every time her phone would go off, but the dread of a dinging phone faded and soon, it was effortless to reply to her friends or update her Facebook status.

In the evenings, I would saunter downstairs, open the deep freeze and admire my wife’s beauty as I told her about my day. It was nice to just be able to talk with her again without having to worry about a looming fight or be burdened with an ever-growing to-do list. Being in her company felt pleasant again, like it had been before the pandemic began.

Living with Janet in our quiet house, void of any bothersome and quite frankly, useless tasks began to feel wonderful, but what I was not expecting was for the misfortune of her accident to bring us together again. Honestly, I could argue that it was just the push, so to speak, that we needed to bring us closer than we ever had been before! Not long ago, I was laying in bed at the brink of Midnight. I was finally just about to doze off when I swore I heard the faintest whimper. It sounded like a woman’s voice. My ears perked up and I sat erect in my bed. I waited in stillness and silence for eternal minutes, longing to hear the sound again. I had nearly given up when I heard a voice, and I was certain it said,

“Babe…”

It was Janet’s voice. I knew it was Janet’s voice! All the way from the basement, I could hear it! God, I had longed to hear that voice. Fire blossomed in my stomach and I returned the call,

“What is it?” I could not mask the glee in my own voice.

“Murray, I’m cold!” She called back.

How inconsiderate of me. Of course she is cold. She’s been cooped up in a freezer, for Christ’s sake! Oh, what a terrible husband I have been. I should have been taking better care of her.

I darted out of bed and hurried towards the linen closet, where I grabbed an old, fleece blanket and a pillow we store away for guests.

“Can’t I come up there and sleep in our bed next to you?” She wailed.

“Janet, darling. unfortunately, no,” I responded as I trotted down the stairs. “I wish I could hold you in my arms at night, but… but we must preserve your body.”

Janet went quiet. I knew that would upset her. I opened the heavy door of the freezer and gazed upon her face. My eyes apologized before my mouth breathed another word.

“I understand,” she said reluctantly. I could tell she was disappointed, but she knew there was nothing I could do. I tucked the pillow under her head and wrapped the blanket around her icy body.

“Is that better?” I asked, and she replied with a soft smile. I kissed her forehead and whispered, “I cannot wait to talk to you tomorrow.”

With that, I closed the freezer door and sauntered back to bed. I felt calm and warm for the first time in months. I had been missing Janet so much, and finally, she came back to me.

I went to the grocery store the following afternoon after realizing I hadn’t enough food for the week. At the register, I grabbed a bar of milk chocolate, Janet’s favorite. In a sing-songy voice, I chimed, “happy wife, happy life!” to the cashier who chuckled as I set the chocolate bar on the counter before her.

As I put the groceries away once I returned home, I realized I ran out of room in the freezer upstairs, which forced me to store a box of chicken nuggets with Janet. With the way her body was curled up in the white, frozen box, the only place where there was room for the nuggets was right on top of her head. I snickered as I tweeted from her phone,

Got chicken nuggets on my mind!

Janet rolled her eyes, but it got fourteen likes and three retweets.

Back in the kitchen, I began making dinner for myself. I peered through the window and a chill spiked my spine as I saw Max’s sedan pulling up in the driveway. Frantically, I rushed to the bedroom and before I even realized I had a plan, I dumped the basket of laundry on top of the bed and shaped the heap to resemble a body before covering it with the blankets. I made it back to the foyer in time to see the front door start to crack open and wide-eyed, I brought my index finger up to my pursed lips, urging Max to be quiet when he entered our home.

“Where’s Mom?” He asked.

“Asleep,” I said. “She’s not feeling well, we figure it must have been something she ate.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” he sulked. “I was hoping to see you both, it’s been too long.”

Sweat trickled down my back, “what are you doing here anyway?”

He had just missed us. That was the entire reason for his visit and that sunk my heart. In any other circumstance, his presence would have elated Janet and I and we would have welcomed him home with warmth. I hated being so anxious to send him on his way. He sat at the table with me and told me about his job and how beautiful his fiancé had made their garden, but I was hardly able to focus on the stories he shared.

I heard Janet yell from the basement, “Max! My boy, come here!”

I felt my skin flush white.

“Are you okay, Dad?” Max asked.

He knows.

“I’m fine, I swear. I-”

Janet shouted again, “Max! I’m in the freezer! Your dad won’t let me out, please come rescue me!”

She’s so dramatic.

I gulped. Could Max hear her?

“Are you sure?” Max said as his brows knitted with concern.

“I must have… eaten whatever your mom had, too.” I studied his face for signs that said he believed me.

“Perhaps you should get some rest,” he said. “I’ll get out of your hair right away; I’ll just say goodbye to mom before I go.”

Oh, God.

“No, you shouldn’t-” I insisted, as I stumbled to stand, nearly knocking my chair over, but Max cut me off,

“It’s fine, Dad, I’ll just whisper from the doorway.”

Sweat trickled down my spine as I got up to block the stairway, but Max headed down the hall towards our bedroom. My shoulders relieved for a moment as I realized Max had not heard his mom, but then tensed up once again as he reached for our bedroom door. My body stilled as the door creaked open. I peered over his shoulder and stared at the pile of laundry underneath the covers.

Please let it be enough, I thought, my eyes tightened shut.

“Goodbye, mom. I hope you feel well soon,” Max whispered. He softly clicked the door back shut and turned to smile at me. “I suppose I’ll be on my way now. Give mom a hug for me when she’s awake.”

I sat stiff until I heard the door shut behind him then let out a long breath of relief. My erratic thoughts grew stable. I laughed off my paranoia and allowed myself to relax, but Max’s visit forced me to face reality. I had been living too carelessly and I had been excusing myself from planning what I knew needed to happen.

I couldn’t keep Janet at home. As desperately as I wanted to have her around, it was too risky and keeping her would only grow harder once the restrictions began to relax. Coming to understand that I needed to say goodbye stirred up the sadness that had quietly settled at the back of my soul. I decided that with the time I had on my side, I didn’t need to do it all at once and that in fact, it would probably be better if I stretched it out over the next few months. Whenever I needed to leave the house, I would take a little piece of her with me, and I would leave her in all of the places I knew she loved the most.

It was difficult having that conversation with Janet, but I knew she would understand what needed to be done. Honestly, she reassured me more than I did her. I held her hand in mine and she smiled, but neither of us had the courage to begin the dreaded task for a good, long while.

Finally, I asked, “where would you like to begin?”

She glanced down at her body and replied, “probably from the bottom up. I’ve never liked my toes much, anyways.” She let out a soft giggle.

I grabbed my saw and began at the ankles. She winced and drew a short breath.

“It stings,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry, Janet,” I whispered back.

I took her feet to the water and I paddled my boat as far out as I could. I strapped stones to her feet to weigh them down so they would not be found floating, and I let them fall from my hands to be swallowed by the vast blue. I took a photo from the dock and updated her Instagram with the caption;

Nothing like the feeling of wet sand between your bare toes.

Her knees, I buried behind the church where we wed. A friend from her work sent her a text about the streak of heat we’d been having just as I had finished patting down the dirt and so I replied,

To: Rachel 3:22 PM

I know, currently kneeling & praying for rain!

Her shoulders were buried by the Oak tree a mile from Janet’s late Grandfather’s old property. Janet told me many stories of this tree, as that’s where she spent so much of her time growing up. I knew she would love that this spot made the list of those I chose for her to rest. I opened her Twitter account when I got near enough to the highway to gain service, and tweeted:

Staying six feet away from everyone! ✌

Thanks to ongoing construction, her hands found their home just outside her favorite nail salon. Her hips were hidden in the trails she loved to wander and her ribs by the stables where she first learned to ride a horse when she was young. Soon, all I had left of her was her head.

I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of her head.

“Can’t I come upstairs?” She pleaded.

I looked down at her head and saw how small it seemed now, alone in the gaping freezer. It was needless to keep her down in the basement; she no longer took up much room.

“Well, I suppose that would be alright,” I winked. I caressed her cheeks under my palms and lifted her from her frozen bed. I waltzed upstairs and into the kitchen, where I re-homed her in the smaller freezer that sat above our fridge.

“Is that better?” I asked.

“Much. Thank you,” she replied with a grin.

This made me glad. I was delighted to have her back upstairs! It would be so much easier to visit her here.

Time began to go by so quickly. Janet began to seem… happy again, and it felt so good to see her smile. I felt giddy like a schoolboy, trapped in a haze of glowing warmth and butterflies. Our dynamic felt the way it did in the beginning. Regularly, we began staying up way too late after losing track of time as we fell deeper into conversation. Her laugh danced like raindrops on a windowpane, and it delighted me to see her laughing that way again! I had nearly forgotten that gentle sound, so I was so grateful when that music box had rewound.

In the evenings, I would make us dinner and she would sit at the table and watch. While we ate, we would reminisce on our earlier days together. There was no bickering, no tension… Just love.

“Do you remember the birds?” I asked. I didn’t need to elaborate any further, she knew right away.

“The ones from our walk! Wow… That was so long ago. Our relationship was so brand-new.” Janet chimed. “How about our epic pillow fight?” She laughed “That, I gotta say, has to be my favorite day with you so far.”

“Better than our wedding?” I teased.

“Better than the day Max was born,” she teased back.

The moon settled into the horizon and I realized we had lost track of time once again. I stood and stretched, ready for sleep, and turned to Janet who shot me a snarky glance.

The dishes, I thought, and groaned.

“I thought we were passed the nagging,” I said.

“Well once you do them, then they’re done!”

The number of times I have heard that. I rolled my eyes and gathered our plates, slumped over to the sink and reluctantly scrubbed. I could hear her giggling from behind me.

“I have a surprise for you,” I said. Even though she was behind me, I could feel her eyes light up. “I’ll be right back.”

I slid through our back door and skipped across the yard towards our garage, from where I pulled our cherry red cooler. I carried it inside and filled it with ice, and placed Janet gently inside of it.

“A cooler?” she mumbled, “that’s the surprise?”

“Well, I thought you could sleep in bed next to me, maybe just this once.”

Her eyes sparkled and I watched as she tried to fight her growing smile. She lost the battle; I saw her teeth. I knew this would elate her. I placed the cooler on the left-hand side of the bed, which had been her side for the last twenty or so years. Though I was sleepy, I found my mind was stirring so I grabbed my phone and decided to scroll through social media to bide the time until my slumber. I opened Facebook and came across Janet’s status, an update she made just before our meal.

I chuckled, “I do not look silly in my apron!”

Janet giggled.

“I look distinguished,” I continued.

“Distinguished?!” Janet snorted, “the thing is patterned with cow print!”

“Yes, and I know you love to watch your man cook in it,” I teased, then mumbled, “writing statuses about me while I prepare your meal.”

Janet laughed again and I snuggled in beside her, wrapping my arm around the hard plastic frame of the cooler and whispered my good nights.

We woke up with the sun the following morning, and my mood was quickly cheerful. I picked the cooler up off the bed and felt the chilled water slush around the base of the container. Hurriedly, I brought Janet to the kitchen and returned her to the freezer.

“I’m just going to leave you here for a couple hours so you can become frozen again,” I told her.

That morning, I made pancakes and scarfed them down quickly. I decided to work on the stool I had been building while I waited for Janet to freeze. I turned on the radio and the morning news was my background noise as I sanded, tweezed, and sneezed.

“Janet, my love!” I sang as I reopened the freezer. “You will never guess what I just heard on the news. We are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel; a vaccination is being rolled out. Soon, our world will return to normal! Isn’t that wonderful?!”

She gleamed.

“There is so much I can’t wait to do with you!” I continued. “I feel like we have missed so many opportunities. Soon, our lives will return to normal. I think this is cause for celebration. Shall we have a picnic?” I asked.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, dear,” Janet began. “Restrictions are still in effect.”

“Well, how about a picnic just in our backyard? Just you and I, outside. It’s been so long since we’ve been outside together.”

“I would love to have a picnic in our backyard,” she smiled.

Eagerly, I filled a basket with fruit and sandwiches, but I paused before I packed up the wine.

“What’s the matter?” Janet asked.

“Do you remember the day you tripped at the top of the staircase?” I asked. My throat tightened and my body flushed cold.

“Yes,” Janet said. “That was terrifying.”

A thick pause filled the space between us.

“I was so afraid,” I admitted. “My mind spiralled to the worst possible place. I thought I was going to lose you.”

“Murray,” Janet soothed. “I was just so lucky that you were there. You reacted so quickly; you were able to catch me just before I fell. You saved me, babe.”

Tears welled in my eyes. “I’m so glad I caught you. I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” Janet said. “Now stop moping! Today is a cause for celebration, remember?”

I laughed. She was right. I grabbed Janet’s face and pulled it close to mine and kissed her gentle, supple lips.

I carried Janet and the basket onto the lawn and laid out a blanket for us to sit on. It was a perfect lunch with the most beautiful woman in the world. I heard our neighbor, Tara step onto her deck.

“Should I invite her to our picnic?” I asked Janet.

“Restrictions….” She warned.

“Well, how about just over the fence? She can set up a lawn chair and enjoy a drink with us. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Hesitantly, Janet nodded. I knew she missed socializing just as much as I did.

“Tara,” I called. “Join us for a drink!”

Tara’s head poked over the fence with a smile, but her expression quickly turned and suddenly, it looked horrified. Her jaw gaped slightly, and her eyes remained wide. She stared for long moments without breathing a word.

Puzzled, I whispered to Janet, “what’s gotten into her?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbled under her breath. “Perhaps she’s got the virus?”

Tara darted back into her home, and I shrugged.

“Another time, I suppose,” I said with a chuckle.

Janet and I finished up our lunch, and I was just about to swallow my last sip of wine before we heard a police siren sound just in front of our home.

“What on Earth…?” Janet murmured.

“Hang on, I’ll go see what’s going on. I’m sure they’re just here to ensure we’re following the rules, I’ll be back in a jiff.,” I said before kissing Janet’s forehead and trotting gleefully towards our gate.

I’ve been relocated to a place much smaller than my home. Now, I spend my days in a tiny, cold room with nothing but a bed and a toilet. The staff come and go, they ask me questions and tidy my room, but my mind has become fuzzy, and I don’t understand why I’m here.

Yesterday at supper time, I heard the slot in my door open so one of the staff members could slip in my tray of supper.

“Wait!” I called out. “When is Janet coming to visit?”

With a sigh, a man’s voice responded, “she’s not coming, man.”

“Why?!” I wailed. Janet hasn’t visited me once since I’ve been here.

I asked the man who gave me supper when Janet was visiting just as I had the day prior and the day before that. Just as I have the last 83 days. I began carving a tally underneath my bed. At first, I thought it was funny, but it turned into a cruel joke against myself. I missed her so much, and I needed to see her! Every day that passed without hearing her voice angered me a little bit more. Yesterday was the final straw, I could feel the rage burning inside of me. My blood boiled, my teeth clenched, and my hands shook and then I just…

tuned out.

Suddenly, I was seated in an uncomfortable chair at a dimly lit restaurant sitting across from a nervous, young Janet, who had finally allowed me to take her out on a date. I heard again her twinkling laughter after I had made a poor joke about a spelling error I had found in the menu. I felt again the moment I knew I captivated her, and I cozied into the warmth of my rapidly growing crush.

Woosh