Childhood Leukemia. Maura was the first to notice it. A bloody nose during one of her baseball-games. Fainting during a playdate with her best friend Hannah. Bruises all over her body, with no explanation to how she got them. It all happened so fast.
I walk through our living room and stop at a little table in the corner. I look at the picture on it and trace a long string of beads with my fingers. I look at her dark curls that she tried to contain in to a ponytail the day of the picture. I remember how much she cried when we had to shave them. I look at her dark eyes, just as dark as mine, and I remember how they lost their sparkle and turned yellow around the edges.
I swallow and look at the string of beads my hand is holding. One bead for every treatment. Bone marrow biopsies. Chemotherapies. Blood tests. MRI scans. Eventually, the string was long enough to drape around her skinny neck four times.
I turn around and look at my wife on the couch. She's lying down, staring at the TV without paying attention. She's so beautiful. Her eyes lost her sparkle. Her curves left along with the weight she lost. But she's so beautiful. She's not the same but I will never stop loving her.
I sit next to my wife and take her feet in my lap, gently massaging her feet. We don't speak. We don't really talk anymore. There's nothing left to say. There's only pain. The empty space Julia left is drifting us apart. It's the most hurtful empty space I've ever experienced. My heart bleeds every time I walk past her bedroom, drive by her school or the baseball field where she used to play. Sometimes I think I can still see her dark ponytail bouncing up and down as she makes her way across the field. Sometimes I think I can still hear her humming in her bedroom while she reads her book. Sometimes I think I can still feel her skinny body in my arms.
But it's all a lie. She's gone.
