No one's picking up the phone. Guess it's clear, he's gone.

Title from Tori Amos' "Hey Jupiter."

Well, he's gone.

He left May 8 around 5:30 am. We got up at 3 am. Got the bigger kids up at 3:30. Had them sleep in their clothes because the last thing I wanted was to fight the two of them on what they were going to wear. That's obnoxious enough any day, but at G-dforsaken hours of the morning on the day he was leaving us, it wasn't something I wanted to even think about much less be caught in the middle of.

I slept. Part of me didn't want to. I wanted to stay awake so as not to miss anything. If he stayed up with me, great. If not, I still wanted the chance to sit there and watch him as he slept. As it was, I fell asleep much later than him because I spent so much time just lying there, my hand on the baby as he slept between us, watching my husband in bed with us.

I vividly remember how his absence in bed haunted me last time. I remember the discussions that went on in my head before I opened my eyes each morning. While working my way out of sleep, I would remind myself of his absence. Still, that little masochist in my mind who would whisper, "Maybe it's all a dream. Maybe I'll open my eyes and find him right there beside me." When my eyes finally did open, an empty space and heartbreak was all I found.

So for the last time, I slept that night, him on the left, me on the right and the baby between us. It was so normal--such an everyday thing. To see us all sleeping there, you'd have no idea what lurked just a few hours away.

I tried to soak in all the mundane little things before he left. I kissed him goodbye when he ran to the store knowing that it was the last time in a long while that he would come home to me. I lay in his arms in bed after we said our own goodbyes; before we brought the baby in with us. I breathed my husband in knowing his scent will not last in his absence. It will only be a matter of days before I lay my head on his pillow searching desperately for that scent, and find it long gone. While he slept, I reached over--my elbow resting gently on the baby and my hand holding my husband's. I stayed there for a while thinking to myself, "When I move, this moment will be lost forever." Eventually, I did and it was.