I always manage to forget. When he's here, I get caught up in it all, the banter, the bustle of day to day life with him. He drags you to him inexorably, like a black hole, until you are living just like him, in the moment- with no concern for the next day or even the next hour.
That wouldn't be such a problem, except he always leaves. It's not unlike having a cloud come over the sun, making the world colder, darker than before. Everything here is so damned quiet, when he's gone, like living in a museum.
I used to clean when he left, but lately I can't bring myself to do it. It's like… one of these days he won't be back to destroy the carefully constructed order. So I just leave it there, it's less painful that way.
They say it's hard to leave those you love. I think it's harder to be left behind. To have no control over what happens, to do nothing but wait and hope that he will come back through that door, bloody and beat up, perhaps, but alive. I have to hope because the alternative is just too terrible to think about.
One day he won't come back. I think deep down, we both know that. One day, his luck will run out and his gambles won't pull through. One day he won't walk through that door.
I sit a second plate on the table, it's like my own little superstition- if I set a place for him, then he has to return.
One day, he won't.