And after the Intermission IV

Then it is the day before she returns. I haven't written much here, I realize. I thought I would, but maybe I am not so interesting on my own. I look over the words I managed. Short sentences. Empty sentences. When I talk with her the night before her flight, she says, "Will you be sad if I don't come back?" She uses the wrong tense, and laughs. I will be a better husband, I say.

The cat has grown frustrated with me. He won't let me brush him anymore. At first it was fine; then it was bribes; now it is not at all. He throws up a hairball on the carpet. He doesn't understand the concept of serves him right. He simply sadly meows.

Tomorrow I will rent a car and pick her up. I will not say how much I missed her. I have said it already and it sounds overblown, and she will be there and missing her is the only thing I will miss, if anything. A strange concept, but this is the experience: I will struggle to talk when what I will want to do is to throw myself into her presence, and when I can talk I will tell a story of us--how we made it through five weeks and grew stronger for it--instead of how those five weeks have weakened me until the first good look at her, in the flesh, will bring my loneliness crumbling down, to a bedrock of longing.