Now What?

PROLOGUE

It was 2:30 a.m. when the phone rang. I fumbled for it, my heart starting a race toward bad news.

Our doctor’s voice urged me to hurry. I crammed into clothes as if I expected this call. Actually I thought all would be well, or did I? It was only a fever that wouldn’t go down.

Only a fever yet the dogs had curled up next to him on his favorite couch and never left his side all week. His ruddy complexion drained to gray. Only a fever.

I cried all the way driving too fast on Eden’s Expressway. Then the slow elevator ride to the fourth floor, a sprint down the dim corridor to his room. He lay on the hospital bed where I’d kissed him goodbye not so many hours before. I’d said, “See you tomorrow.” My husband of thirty years replied with words I hadn’t heard in a long time. “I love you.” Not since the heart attack two years before when he began listening to his heart beat and forgot about me. When he said them, other words flashed across my mind, like writing on a sign: Too late, Bobby. Maybe we both sensed the crossroads ahead, the impending doom.

Our doctor shook his head. “Bob had difficulty breathing. They called me. We did everything possible to save him. I held him in my arms when he took his last breath. Carly, I’m so sorry.”

I asked him to have everyone leave me alone. Settling in beside my Bob, I held his cooling hand and asked the two words spoken many times during our years together.

“Now what?” This time there was no response. I was on my own for the first time.

My hands caressed his sweet face knowing he wasn’t there. Only his shell lay on the bed. The essence, the beauty of his spirit had moved on. I let my eyes gaze around the colorless room; the water glass half empty now, straw bent for easy access. His toothbrush leaned in a container, toothpaste smeared down its side. The scuffed leather slippers under the bed and striped terry cloth robe—a Christmas gift from the kids, draped over a nearby chair.

Homey and homely. And the saddest sight I’ve ever seen.

When my fingers touched his wedding ring, I slipped it off and held it in my fist. The gold band was warm. I clung to him. “Come back to me, dearest.”

I knew from past experience, loved ones always return.