Whispers in the dark

When I met my husband he was just a guy wearing blue jeans and a white tee shirt. A hot guy wearing blue jeans and a white tee shirt. Simple and sweet. He wrote notes on cocktail napkins and eagerly drank every concoction I passed over those two cruel feet of bar-top between us. And he was magic because he knew it every time my eyes found him. He looked back and smiled while he talked or listened to someone talking in the corner of the room. "hi". His lips moved, but the music was loud and he was soo far away. "hi". I clunked glasses onto the bar and ripped my eyes away from his long enough to collect cash and make trips to the register, cooler, ice-well. All the time wondering when the hell I was going to wake up.

Nights are different now. Under the comforter we hold hands and whisper about our day. The baby is feet away in the cradle my husband slept in twenty-nine years ago. We're kids at a slumber party trying not to wake anyone up. I say something funny and he laughs silently, but in the crack of light from the bathroom I can see his cheeks gather up under his eyes. Our feet touch and the little dog sighs loudly between us. We laugh some more. Quietly our nights are for each other here. Two minutes or sixty minutes go by. A cotton ball is louder than we are as we steal quick, close kisses in the dark.

In the time it takes to say "i love you," I'm asleep.

And in the too early morning I open my eyes and look to my left. In the dark, just past the baby who somehow made his way between us in the night, is my husband. "Thank you," I say into the air. I pinch myself. Because you never can be too sure.