PlotlumeOn the eighty-sixth day after my diagnosis of terminal bone cancer, I developed an overwhelming fear of the dark.
Only the television's white noise let me close my eyes for a moment and quiet my terror of death.
But Owen Radford resented it. He said his severe insomnia made the sound unbearable, that I was tormenting him.
He angrily unplugged the television and threw me a cold pair of noise-canceling headphones.
"Can you stop being so dramatic? Put these on and go to sleep!"
Trying to understand his exhaustion, I wore the headphones every night, enduring the ringing in my ears as I lay awake through the dwindling hours of my life.
Yesterday, the doctor told me I had less than a month left.
I came home early from the follow-up, wanting only to ask him to hold me one last time.
At the main bedroom door, the shrill sound effects of a Japanese horror film burst through the gap.
I pushed it open.
Owen lay holding our new young housekeeper, their sleepwear disheveled.
She trembled with fright at the film. He covered her ears tenderly and slept peacefully through its deafening screams.
I stood in the doorway watching for ten full minutes.
The insomnia that supposedly let a single drop of water wake him had been cured by the young housekeeper curled against his chest.
I took off the noise-canceling headphones and dropped them into the bin.
Back in the living room, I carefully signed my name on the form waiving resuscitation.
1
"What are you doing sitting here in the middle of the night? Trying to haunt the place?"
Owen's voice came from the hallway.
He opened the bedroom door and frowned at me on the living-room sofa.
I calmly capped my pen and turned the no-resuscitation consent form facedown on the coffee table.
"I'm not doing anything." I stood.
"It's just a little noisy."
He gave a cold laugh and poured himself warm water at the bar.
"Noisy?"
"I bought you the best noise-canceling headphones there are. Instead of using them, you sit in the living room acting crazy in the middle of the night?"
He sipped his water as though his position were self-evident.
"Hazel Jensen scares easily. The movie frightened her so much she couldn't sleep. What's wrong with keeping her company?"
The bedroom door opened again.
Hazel peered out timidly, barefoot in Owen's oversized white shirt.
"Owen, did I disturb Megan Harper?"
Her eyes were red. Like a startled fawn, she twisted the shirt hem anxiously in both hands.
"Of course not." He immediately set down the cup, went over, and put an arm around her shoulders.
"She's emotionally unstable. It's an old problem."
I watched them hold each other, trembling faintly as pain bored out of my bones.
Once, he had protected me that way.
When I was afraid of the dark that year, he stayed on video calls with me all night. He didn't dare hang up even when I went to the bathroom.
He said he had severe insomnia, but for me he would stay awake until his eyes were red.
Now, amid Hazel's screams, that condition had miraculously healed.
Without speaking, I went to the spare bedroom and pulled out the suitcase I had already packed.
Its wheels rumbled dully across the floor.
His expression darkened instantly.
"What are you doing now?" He let go of Hazel and blocked my path.
"Staying somewhere else for a few days." I looked at the long hair caught on his shirt collar, my voice perfectly level.
"Moving out? Megan, can you stop being so childish?" His brows knotted tightly.
"You're running away because I spent one night with Hazel?"
"I told you, she's new to the city. She doesn't understand anything. A movie made her cry. As her employer, what's wrong with comforting her?"
"Will you only be satisfied when your petty jealousy has made this house miserable?"
I tightened my grip on the suitcase handle until my knuckles turned white.
Pain spread from my knees through my whole body. I fought the cold sweat.
"I'm not being jealous." I raised my head and met his eyes.
"I only want somewhere different to sleep."
"Isn't noise what bothers your insomnia most?"
"Now that you have Hazel, you should sleep very well."
He paused, apparently unprepared for my calm.
In the past, seeing him intimate with another woman would have sent me into hysterical demands for answers.
But he quickly decided that my calm was simply another form of silent treatment.
"Fine. Go make your scene." He stepped aside.
"Where will you go this late?" he asked casually, offering concern like charity.
"A hotel." I wheeled my suitcase toward the door.