STORIES: Marriage

Oh my.  I suppose that yes, I should have called 911 right away, or even Dr. Shapiro.  But I was only half awake from a bad dream and as I slipped back into sleep I realized he wasn’t snoring, and as I held my own breath listening, I knew Charlie was dead.  But it was three o’clock in the morning and the room was so cold–Charlie always snuck the windows open a crack even in late October, and it was so warm under the covers.  I’d put up twenty quarts of pickles and two dozen pints of cinnamon pears that day and I was very tired, and after forty-three years spent in our marriage bed, Charlie, I thought, could surely lay there till morning.