"I can't sleep."(Kevin Hughes) He never saw it coming. Like a frog in cold water before someone turns up the heat. He could tell you the exact moment later…but not while it was actually happening. It started when he wasn’t even home. Eight years of love slowly drained out of his life- and then…it was over. It started with something so mundane, he would laugh out loud, except then the tears would start and his soul would scream.

For it started with a knock.

*****

She heard the knock. It wasn’t loud or demanding. Just a simple : knock, knock, knock. She set her book down next to her coffee to go to the front door. It was almost noon, so maybe it was a package from Amazon, or Miss Betty from next door who often came to borrow (but really just to chat) something. She opened the door and there stood a small group of nice looking people. All of them smiling.

“Yes?”

“Good morning. My name is Ella, this is Josh, and Ezekiel - we were wondering if you ever wondered if you had a soul?”

She was stunned by the question. It wasn’t your ordinary run of the mill conversation starter. It intrigued her. She stood in the doorway as the conversation deepened. Fifteen minutes later and she brought them in her house. For more than an hour they sat around the table. She brought out some cookies, which brought the conversation to a lighter place for a few minutes.

“Just water will be fine. We don’t want you to go to any trouble.”

So it was water- and not chocolate milk- that washed down the highly complimented home made cookies. Then the conversation went back to a deep meaningful conversation. One she had never expected to have. She was drawn to its depths. Her spirit rose…and her love started to drown. She tried to talk to him when he got home. He brushed it aside.

“Honey, those are just salesmen. Selling a way to save your soul, but only if you follow their rules. Everybody else’s Faith is only partly true. But their’s, they will tell you, it the only true Religion. They want to control your mind, and your behavior…and judge you. Then they will manipulate you with “fellowship”, or “Congregation”, until you only believe what they say. I don’t trust them. Any of them. “

She was disappointed he didn’t want to hear more about the things she heard. The things she was thinking about. She resented him for not wanting to talk to them - together…as a couple. It was the first tear in their relationship. Just a tiny few stitches pulled from a relationship that had grown and thrived for eight years.

And that was all it took.

Until one day…just a few months later.

When it happened.

*****

“I can’t sleep with you anymore. It’s not right. It is wrong. It is a sin in God’s eyes.”

He looked across the table at her. He had no words. He had noticed that she was less and less interested in any kind of sexual activity. The spontaneous joy of bonding - body to body- and the warm closeness it brought after words…was lacking. The times they fooled around, and then softly whispered pillow talk... was gone. She had tied her beautiful hair up in a bun. She started to wear longer dresses, no make up, and even rejected hugs and butterfly kisses.

He had chalked it all up to just another stage in their relationship…the doldrums. He had heard about the “seven year itch” in long term relationships…so maybe this was just her way of scratching it. That is what he had thought. He didn’t think that now. She was sitting across from him without an ounce of compassion, only blame.

He tried to talk to her. To reason with her. He couldn’t. And then she said the thing that ended it all.

“You are doing the Devil’s work. Trying to use my body to get my soul!”

She saw the change in him. She knew those words cut him right to the core. She had never seen anybody die before, but she saw him die in front of her eyes. She would never forget that look. Like someone just reached in and took all the LIFE out of someone. He was physically just fine…but his heart and soul had been mortally wounded. She was defiant. She didn’t listen to the small voice trying to gain her attention. The voice that was telling her she was killing the love she had once so treasured…and he still did.

And then she nailed any hope of continuing on as a couple:

“I can’t sleep with you anymore.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. She wished he would yell, scream, punch the wall, anything to show her a glimpse of emotion. He did none of those things. He sat silent for a long time. His eyes never leaving hers. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes. She checked the clock. For some reason she remembered that tiny detail. He had gone quiet at just three minutes past noon. It was now twelve thirty five. He broke the silence:

“I think you should call your friend Ella, and have her and those two boys of hers come and help you move out. I am sure either they, or your Mom will give you a place to stay until you get your own apartment.”

He got up and went to the bedroom for a few minutes. She sat at the table, to stunned to cry. It was over. It was actually over. He came back into the room with an envelope and a small box. His voice and eyes were dead. A part of her wondered if Zombies eyes looked like that.

“Here is enough money to get an apartment. They usually ask for the first and last month up front. There’s a little extra in there in case it takes you a bit to find a place you like. The box has everything you ever gave me, and the two drawings you made for me. I don’t want them anymore. I will leave now. Your friend and her boys should be able to move you this afternoon. You can take whatever you want furniture wise…I will replace it with my own stuff.

I hope the path you have chosen works for you. It is one I can’t walk with you on. Good luck. I hope it works out, and you find what you were looking for.”

He patted her shoulder once. Lightly. Turned and walked out. The last thing she heard from him, as the door slowly closed were these final parting words:

“Leave the keys on the table. Don’t ever come back.”

Then she did cry. Huge racking sobs took her breath away. After a while, she looked in the box …it held all the things that mattered. Her eyes went almost as dead as his did. He kept nothing of her. Nothing. He gave it all back. And her future was all hers. Hers alone. She put the envelope in the box and called Ella - within an hour several members showed up to help her move. She took all the furniture she had picked out over the years. And the TV…he hated TV…a part of her wondered if he would ever bother to get another one.

By four in the afternoon, she was loaded up…she told Ella to wait a second while she made one last check of the apartment. She was stunned at how little was left. She had only taken furniture she had chosen…it took almost an empty apartment to realize how much of the place was her choice. Even the bed (that in her mind was the reason this turned out this way) was her choice. She looked around each room. The Bedroom was empty of all but a single solitary dresser. The dresser he had when she moved in. It was his.

The living room didn’t fair much better. Just that hideous green corduroy covered recliner that he so loved. A lamp his mother gave him stood where it always did behind the big green monstrosity - a reading lamp. She used to love the way that lamp scattered the light around him when he read. She would secretly admire him from across the room. She brushed that memory aside before it could grow into a tear.

The kitchen table and chairs were hers too. As was the couch. She did leave the ugly green stools at the counter. He loved those stools, they let his long legs dangle when he sat on them. He could use those and eat at the counter until he got a new table….at least that was her thought at the time. The place really did seem empty. Like a morgue. Something died here. She couldn’t shake that feeling. The place was empty. Just a few pieces of furniture and the one picture of his family still hung on the wall.

Nothing remained of her, or their time together. He had given her back any pictures of them together. The place was sterile now. Somehow as clean as it was, it seemed dirty to her. She put the keys on the table. Took one long sweeping glance around. She felt a tap on her shoulder:

“You Okay?”

Asked Ella. Concern dripping like syrup from her voice.

She steeled herself before she answered.

“Yes. No. I will be.”

Ella shook her head knowingly. Taking her hand and guiding her out the door. Smiling the whole time, Ella whispered a prayer to God for saving her new friend from the Evil of her old life.

*****

The first month was rough. He almost moved to another apartment…in another city. He did not. He liked this city. He liked this Apartment. He had lived in it for four years before they met….and then eight more as a couple. He wouldn’t move. He couldn’t. He ate at the counter that first month. He read in his favorite chair…and that made him laugh a rueful laugh. For he didn’t really read as much as he just stared off into the empty room…trying to patch all the pieces together. The hints of what was going to happen stood out like frescoes in the glaring light of hindsight.

He had never known that she had any Spiritual or Religious feelings that left a hole in her beliefs. They had never discussed Religion or Faith in anything other than academic terms. He didn’t know she felt a “lack” or emptiness in her life. He thought their lives were full and rich…and for eight years…so did she. They never went to church…and never felt the need. They had left Religion behind, with all the other stories of their childhoods. They used to laugh as they compared Sunday school experiences from the two very different Faiths their Parents imposed on their youth.

She was amazed at what Nuns could get away with. He was amazed at the amount of times she went to church a week…and again on Sundays. College had let them both get away from the rules and notions from a book more than two thousand years old. They would laugh over the silliness of what constitutes being Baptized - as they remembered long and heated discussion over that topic within their respective families.

“Imagine an all powerful god, who won’t let you in heaven because you used the wrong water.”

And they would laugh.

Now he realized it was no laughing matter for her. She had the seeds planted deep. The month creeped by as he learned to forgive her for leaving. She had a need he could’t fill. He didn’t worry about an After Life. He chose to live this one as best he could. He would know soon enough what was next. He was kind, honest, loving, and forgiving. And he didn’t need a Religion or “fire and brimstone” , or the threat of an eternity of burning in hell to keep him in line. He just thought you should treat people the way you would like to be treated. It is one of the reasons she fell in love with him. He was the kindest, gentlest, most trusting man she had ever met.

That brought another rueful laugh to his reverie - he had trusted that their love would win out over anything. He was wrong.

After a month had gone by…he did buy a table. He thought four chairs was plenty. He bought a bed. A king sized bed. He liked having all that room to himself. He missed the cuddles and being a source of warmth (she was always so cold…and her feet could give ice a good run for its money.) He smiled at the memory of how she would slide her feet in-between his calves…and sigh. He would never back away or flinch from her touch. He was providing a service…one he loved to give freely. Warmth.

He decided after another month to get a couch. One big enough for his long lean frame to stretch out on. At least that way, on the rare occasions he had company over, they had a place to sit. So far…those occasions were limited to his best friend Barry coming over for a quick beer and checking up on his friend.
Without a TV to watch, Barry usually found a way to hasten back out of the quiet apartment. Once in a while staying to listen to an album his friend played on his old fashioned but up to date record player.

“Can’t beat vinyl!”

He would exclaim to his friends delight. After a few months Barry stopped checking in as often. His friend seemed to be moving on and bring her up in conversation less and less…and then…not at all. Time wound on.

A year or so went by. He dated again. He was still young. Still attractive. Still kind. He had learned his lesson. He would ask questions on the First Date that he imagined he probably should have asked her. Do you think about God? What do you think about Religion. Do you feel an empty spot where your Faith used to be.

Some women laughed. Some went deep. Some…well…some wondered if he was just some kind of Religious freak. He just wanted to know. He had heard a Comedian once say that he had let go of the Faith he was raised in…not with any fanfare or loud pronouncement…just let it go. And how years later he found himself reaching for a something to fill that gap in his being. He thought his Ex would have understood that Comedian. So he checked with the women he dated so he wouldn’t be blind sided again by something that had nothing to do with him.

He thought he could live with a person who had different beliefs…it never dawned on him that they couldn’t live with him. After all his Parents, his two sisters and his older brother had differing beliefs than he did…and he loved them all. He knew they cared…so he didn’t care what they believed. His Ex thought it was remarkable that he didn’t judge any of them…and could somehow navigate their differences. He just thought that was the right thing to do

He stopped trying to date after a while. He was comfortable alone. He didn’t ever want to be in that position again…where an idea could become more important than a person. Besides, he had already been with the best girl in the world…and that ghost drove away the more astute women he met. Time marched on. Another year faded into yet another. He wasn’t unhappy, or happy….he was simply comfortable. He had his hobbies, he had his books, he had travel and experiences. He had fun sometimes too. He had it all…but her.

Thirty had snuck up on him. Thirty five flew by. Forty was closing in. He was in his chair reading when he heard it. A knock. A quiet knock. Even with his limited understanding he knew it for a timid, not sure kind of knock. He smiled as he set his book down and climbed out of the big green corduroy chair.

“Coming! Just a minute.”

He opened the door. The world, his world…stopped. Time stopped. Nothing made sense. It was her. Older now. Grey streaks mixed in with the duller red of her natural hair. She was a bit heavier then he remembered. But not by much. She looked…tired. He couldn’t speak. He just stared down at her.

She looked up. Her eyes were as open caring and childlike as was possible for any person to have. It was a look that said in no uncertain terms:

“I am here. I am vulnerable. I am out of any armor or defense. This is me- all of me- revealed to you as I am…do as you will.”

She held her palms out in either supplication or surrender. Never once looking away from his eyes. She spoke the bedrock of her pain to him:

“I can’t sleep.”

He led her to the couch. He stretched out with a small pillow under his head. He patted the space he left on the couch. She slipped off her shoes and curled into the hollow of his arms. He reached over the back of the couch, pulling the blanket around her and him. She was asleep in seconds. He held her close. When her ice cold feet slid in-between his calves…she sighed and snuggled closer. He smiled.

Soon, he slept too.

She woke up twelve hours later. Refreshed in body and soul. She smelled bacon cooking. She yawned and stretched feeling alive and complete. She padded into the kitchen, leaned up agains the door and watched him cook. He turned and smiled. She glided up under his arm and cuddled.

“That smells delicious.”

He laughed. He buried his face in her hair and whispered back:

“So do you.”

She gave his waist a squeeze with her arm. She let go to get the eggs out of the refrigerator. Together they made breakfast. Over buttered toast and tea they filled in the gaps. After breakfast she curled up on his lap on the big green recliner…a recliner now that seemed to anchor her to both him and their future. She loved that monstrosity now.

“Why did you come back?”

It was a fair question. She answered it without guile or artifice.

“I couldn’t sleep anymore.”

• Share this story on
• 2