Quest and Tillie

Chapter 3: I Want Nothing

When so much of your life is wrapped up in another person and has been for years, how do you go about untangling all of the ties binding you together? That afternoon, as I stood in the house Quest and I shared, I felt as if I was looking at it through the eyes of a stranger. And maybe I was because I no longer felt like the Tillie who had left the house the previous day. 

The Tillie who trusted her husband. 

The Tillie who had a strong, loving marriage. 

The Tillie whose husband hadn't betrayed her.

That Tillie was gone. Mrs. Sullivan was dead and buried, and my own husband had dug the grave.

And now I had to figure out who this new Tillie was.

The Tillie who wasn't part of a couple,

The Tillie who didn't have a husband.

The Tillie whose world had been blown up

It was like a death. The easiest part was, surprisingly, the big goodbye -- you were dazed and confused and it was over before your stunned senses could take it all in and you were left...reeling. Spinning around trying to make sense of your vastly different life. 

And then.

Then came the thousands of little goodbyes after the big one that were the true killer. All the little ways your life would never be the same. All the little things you would miss. All the little ways you had to face learning to live without the other person. All the little things you would never again do together. All the times you wanted to reach out...and couldn't any longer.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

As I stood in the doorway of our home, trying to gather my courage to enter fully into the house, our home, my eyes focused on the afghan my grandmother had crocheted for us for a wedding present. It was a light beige color, and she'd made it extra long and extra wide.

So it fits you both, sweetie.

And while she had made it for us, and it was therefore meaningful to me, I found I didn't want it because of all the memories I had of being wrapped up in it with Quest on cool fall days and cold winter evenings. 

Wrapped up.

Every part of me was wrapped up with Quest. Every. Single. Part. So entwined were we that I didn't know how we could ever go on as single entities. It felt like an amputation, like losing all of your limbs. Like having your heart torn out of your chest.

Taking a deep breath, I walked over to our bedroom and stood in the doorway, contemplating the neatly-made bed that hadn't been slept in by either one of us last night.

Because the Sullivans were no more. Because Mr. Sullivan had destroyed us by sticking his dick in another woman.

I wished I'd known the last night we were in bed together that it was the last night we'd be in our bed together. I wish I'd known our last morning together that it'd be our last morning together. I wish I'd known the last time we'd walked out of our house together that it'd be the last time we'd walk out of our house together. 

So much had changed in so little time that I could still hear the echoes from when we were good, when we were a couple, when we were in love.

You are everything to me. Quest always whispered those words to me right after we'd made love in our bed. Or on our couch. Or on our table. Or on the bathroom vanity. He'd look into my eyes, no matter where we were, and whisper those words to me, his thumbs rubbing over my cheeks.