Bed (Un)rest

I say I’ll go to bed early, sleep off the day without guilt.

But I don’t. I read or putter or snack on junk food while glued to the TV. I finally drag myself upstairs, check on the children.

Maybe she’ll want to snuggle later. I push my daughter’s hair from her face. She looks, when she sleeps, exactly as she did five years ago, asleep on a blanket tucked into a corner on the bare wood floor of an unfinished room. I took her picture that day, but I didn’t need it to recall her sweet cheek or her rosebud mouth.

But tonight, she sleeps like a big girl, arms and legs a-kimbo. When I lean in to kiss her, I smell the sweat from her neck and the soap from her bath.

The boy is long in his crib, a yellow blanket peeking out from between his bare feet. I dart in and out, turning off his Japanese lantern, holding my breath when the door squeaks when I pull it shut.

My bed is a white expanse of luxury, the double-wedding ring quilt my mother made me by hand lays across the comforter. I pull it back, slip inside cool sheets.

I experiment; close my eyes, I sleep on his side of the bed, defiant. The pillow smells like him and I think of the prickly, duck-feather feeling of his hair under my fingers.

I listen for the children, cocking my head hopefully. Maybe I should go get her. She likes to sleep with me in the bed when he’s away.

But I don’t. I reach for the light. I turn it off. I close my eyes.

It’s hard to sleep when he’s away.

Tagged as: daily, marriage, motherhood