Tonight, like almost every night during the past forty years, I sit up waiting for him.
The room is silent except for the eternal tick-tack of the old grandfather clock. I am tired, but I do not move, I want to be here when he arrives.
Oh, of course he will scold me for it, tell me I should have gone to bed, but the twinkle in his eyes will give him away, as always. He is overjoyed that I am still waiting for him, even after all these years, and I realise that to see this twinkle is what I stay up for. To see that after all these years, he is still coming back to me, no matter how young and blond and pretty the women in his office might be.
He will sit down next to me and share his joys and sorrows, the way he always has, and I will listen, knowing that I am the only person to hear many of the things he tells me.
He is ambitious, oh yes, but he is not without principles, the way many people think he is. I know him, and I see how he bathes himself in the success of his little games, only so he won't have to think about the game itself. He used to love it, but ever since they changed the rules, I find him frowning where others shrug, flinching where others don't care. Don't get me wrong, he does play by the new rules, but his heart is not into it. I can sense it by the way he tells me about his day, and I can sense it by the things he does not tell me. Somehow, it makes me love him even more. And it is even more of a reason to wait up for him, to show him that he is not alone.
So I sit on the sofa, waiting as always, and I smile as I watch the clock tick the minutes away, knowing that each passing second brings him closer to me.