Abandoned

The call came at 8:30 in the morning. Chest pains. Collapse. EMT's doing compressions. Come quickly. But there is nothing quick about driving from Madison to Waukesha on a cloudy Tuesday in September. Panic and fear will not change the speed limit from 65 to 85, nor will desperation create time travel. That stretch of highway became the loneliest and longest drive of her life, compounded by the sickening clench of her stomach.

In the end, she was too late.

Fluorescent hospital lights added to the flurried blur of the day as strangers touched her shoulder and mouthed odd words: Autopsy. Arrhythmia. Arrangements. How did those words slip themselves into her day?

Evening found her home. At least, in her home. But how could this be the same home? There were his slippers, tossed askew by his favorite armchair. In the clothes dryer, his shirts waited to be folded or ironed. On any other Tuesday evening, she would have folded those shirts and moved the slippers to the bedroom where they belonged. But how could she move them now? The moment she changed anything in the house would be the moment she moved on, the moment she realized that he wasn't coming home, the slippers would never be put on, the shirts would never be worn.

She wasn't ready for that moment to come.

Instead she sank into the armchair, eyes on the abandoned slippers, and did absolutely nothing.