Early morning light burns through my eyelids. Groggy, I flip over and away from the window, my arm instinctively searching for him. I already know he’s not there. I open my eyes to to see a note in the space where his body should be. With a sigh, I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stand. I don’t bother reading the note. I’ve read it a hundred times before.

Sorry, Sweetheart.

One of his shirts is slung over the back of a chair, and I slip it on as I step out of the bedroom and into the living room. Uncomfortable in the silence, I switch on the radio to delight in Dean Martin’s singing. I settle on one of the stools at the bar and read the headline of yesterday’s paper: Gunfight in Alley: Two Dead. I wonder if maybe he was somehow involved, and decide that he probably was.

The clock informs me that my husband’s shift at the hospital ends in an hour. I move back into the bedroom and pull on my dress and heels from the night before. My eyes go to the bed one last time, and then I start for home.