It's not the day she dies that hits you so much. It's the day that comes after that, Peter thinks. Nobody tells you…. what it's like to feel the way you do the morning after, when the shock wears off and you're confronted with the fact that she's simply gone. It's not sadness…its confusion and bewilderment and something you can't put in words.
There's no name for that feeling - when you wake up in a bed and not find her asleep besides you, sharing warmth and blankets and fifteen years of marriage, her body shielding you from the full strength of the morning sun pouring in from your bedroom window and you lie there trying to picture the folds in her side of the covers, the creases in the sheets, an empty water glass on her nightstand, thinking about her pajamas in the hamper.
When you put on a pot of coffee meant for two people and realize you're going to never drink it all, lamenting, even in the midst of grief, the waste of those really expensive beans bought on the black market for an exorbitant price… because you loved her.
What do you call that feeling, when you wander around a house entirely suffused with her essence and find her absent in all the spaces she should have occupied, in which only yesterday she lived and breathed and existed and now doesn't anymore? The house that she had loved beyond reason and made something they could call home, poured her heart into every little corner and protected fiercely from the horrors of the outside world in the furniture she chose and the little knick knacks she spent years collecting.
How do you describe what you go through when you keep seeing her things? Orphan possessions still staking their claim; the bookmark tucked away in a novel, her favorite mug rinsed out in the dishwasher, her shoes next to yours, the fabric of your coats rubbing against each other. There are products that still fight for space against yours on the bathroom counter, a bevy of economy size drugstore essentials, half used.
When you walk into a closet that still smells like her and find the dry cleaning receipts tacked to the wall.
The ones that will still need to be picked up on Thursday even if she's dead now.
You don't miss what could have been. You don't regret all the things you never did. That will come later. Much later…
For now, you only miss all the things you already did. The mundane life you shared, the routines that have been so severely interrupted. You realize you'll never have your weekly dinner date at the restaurant you've come to think of as yours, or spend a Friday evening on the living room couch watching Jason takes Manhattan, your hands weaving through her hair as you both laugh silly. You'll never kiss her forehead when she falls asleep in your arms from sheer exhaustion, a case file halfway open in her lap, while you read late into the nights and never let her go. You'll never make her breakfast on Sunday mornings - two eggs over easy, bacon and grapefruit juice – or leave notes on post its addressed to her on the fridge, asking her to pick up milk from the grocery store. You'll never fight over chores and money or cable subscriptions packages, debating how much was too much to be paying for HBO, and what was the point when neither of you even had any time to watch TV.
You realize that you'll never make love to her again. You'll never hear her voice or touch her face, or hold her in your arms, her head nestled under your chin so perfectly, slowly moving her to the muted strains of a jazz record on Walter's record player, trying to forget about the children you wanted so much and decided to do without.
And you think about that sadness that you'll never feel and feel sad for not being able to feel it anymore, because the longing connected you to her and you realize it doesn't exist because she doesn't.
Nobody thinks to tell you, Peter realizes, how to live without her and not feel those things.
Nobody tells you, how to live without her, the day after she dies.