That was the moment that convinced me I wasn’t in a dream. This was real, it was tangible, it was intimate, it was everything it should have been and more. I knew now I was in the real world with my real wife.
I can honestly say, I’d never been happier. I took a full week off of work and just spent time with her. It was the best gift I’d ever been given. Gradually, the past five years began to feel like some bad joke. Here was my wife, and she’d never even left.
Of course, I noticed some things were off. We never left the house. With her home, it seemed natural for us to stay in together. I saw our kitchen stocked with food, even though neither of us had gone to the store.
She never told anyone else that she was back. I never told them, either. It wasn’t that I was keeping her a secret. The moment she came back into my life, it was like the rest of the world didn’t exist, like it had never existed in the first place.
Lastly, we never addressed her death. I was petrified of bringing it up, as though it would break the delicate balance of her reappearance and she’d be gone again. I just pretended she had never gone, and gradually began to believe it myself.
After a week, I was sufficiently assured that she wasn’t going anywhere. I went back to work. I’d come home to a home-cooked meal and romantic evenings. The spring came back into my step and I was always whistling, much to the annoyance of other subway passengers.
It was bliss.
Then it shattered.
