I hadn’t gone to bed naked in years. Not since the days Noah and I would fall asleep after fooling around. But tonight I felt like going to bed without the confinement of clothing; tonight I wanted to wait up for my husband, despite his instructions not to.
I wanted to touch and be touched and take a short sabbatical into a life where all the pieces fit. I wanted . . . my husband.
Hours passed before I detected the low timbre of the garage door opening. I could have checked the clock, but I didn’t want to know what time on a Saturday night my husband was making his way home to his family.
His footsteps roamed the first floor for a while. Then the sink ran for so long I almost peeled myself from bed to see if he’d decided to hand-wash every dish in our cupboards.
A few minutes of silence passed after the sink turned off—no footsteps, no creak of cupboards opening, no din streaming from the television. It was as if he’d vanished. Checking out the window, I saw the light was off in the shed. He’d noticed something as insignificant as a left-on light and tended to it—yet he embodied oblivion where our family was involved.
Another minute passed before I detected the steady beat of him climbing the stairs, the echo of footsteps stalking down the hall. Despite every step bringing him closer, each one became quieter, as though he were trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake me. It was eerie how silently he could move; I’d never noticed before.
Noah’s shadow slipped through the opening in the door, those light eyes of his failing to connect with the bed as he glided soundlessly toward the bathroom. He was in dark, casual clothing, nothing like what he wore for running or work, and he was moving differently, as though he’d strained a muscle, which wasn’t an unusual occurrence for Noah. If it wasn’t from the inhuman number of miles or pace he ran them at, it was something he’d strained, sprained, bruised, or, even once, broken at Jiu Jitsu. He’d taken up the sport years ago, and attended classes several times a week without fail. Work, hobbies, family—that was the order of Noah’s priorities it seemed. Once upon another life, it used to bother me, but somewhere along the way I’d settled into an apathetic acceptance of my husband’s priorities.
Back in college, his physique had fallen into the tall and lanky category, but his body had morphed in the years since. Instead of developing the standard dad ponch, his stomach remained flat and hard, the rest of his body following the same theme. It seemed the older he became, the more he tended to his body, getting stronger with age.
My eyes had been adjusted to the dark for hours, so I could see everything he did through the half-closed door after he stepped into the dark bathroom.
He stripped out of his clothing, moving from top to bottom, his shoes already abandoned somewhere downstairs. His movements were choppy and slow, and if I didn’t know better, I might have assumed he was drunk. But Noah didn’t drink. He never really had.
So what had he hurt this time? His side maybe? Back?
Once he was undressed, he hopped into the shower for a few minutes, the scent of his preferred soap drifting into the bedroom. Emerging from the shower, he slid open one of the bathroom drawers and removed a bottle of pain relievers. Instead of opening the bottle and swallowing a few, his fist circled the bottle as he leaned into the counter, head falling as a quiet sigh emanated from him. He let the bottle fall to the floor, his back rising and falling from heavy breaths.
Seeing him like this had me sitting up in bed. This wasn’t the Noah I was used to—the composed, veiled man he wanted the world to see.
He must have heard the mattress move because his head tipped over his shoulder, his glowing blue eyes finding me. Even in the darkness, I noticed the hard lines fall from his expression.
“Did I wake you?” His voice was quiet, tired.
My fist tightened around the sheet tucked over my chest. “I was awake.”
Reaching for one of the towels hanging on the rack, he pulled it free and wound it around his midsection before stepping out of the bathroom.
“It’s late.” He started for his dresser, his gaze leaving me.
“I know.” My throat moved. “Where were you?”
He retrieved an old pair of cut-off sweatpants from his drawer, keeping his back turned to me as he exchanged the towel for the shorts. Despite the loaded question that hung between us, my heart quickened as I watched him. My forty-one-year-old husband had the body of a twenty-year-old.
My body strained in response to a man’s bare body, something inside aching for the relief only intimacy could bring. I hadn’t wanted Noah like this in years—in the kind of way I could taste in the back of my throat, where I could almost feel his hands on me, hungry, his body moving inside me.
“Where’s Andee? She wasn’t in her bedroom.” His voice was hushed, his movements sharp as he tied the drawstring of his sweats.
“She’s out with friends.”
If he sensed the half-truth in my words, he gave no indication.
“Noah, where were you?” I asked again, consulting the clock resting on my dresser. “It’s nearly one thirty.”
“After the meeting, I went to the gym, then stopped by the office to finish some paperwork.” Sliding open a different drawer, he retrieved an old college shirt. “I usually come home late on Saturdays.”
“I know. But I’m never awake when you do to see how late it is.”
He unfolded the shirt, padding toward the bed. “Why are you awake tonight?”
Heat flooded my face as I questioned myself—doubted myself. Before I could change my mind, I let go of the sheet. The coolness of it floated down my chest, past my stomach, gathering in my lap. “I was waiting for you.”
Noah’s face didn’t change; same with his eyes. His gaze remained leveled on mine. “What are you doing?”
“Come to bed.” I pulled back the covers on his side of the bed. “I want you.”
Those three words opened up a swarm of vulnerability I did not like to acknowledge was trapped inside me. Want. Need. A request. A plea. An acknowledgment I was not so unwaveringly self-sufficient after all.
He pulled the shirt over his head, tugging it down his stomach. It was the shirt I’d bought him as a graduation gift following his doctoral, during the money-was-exceptionally-tight phase of our marriage. Back then, it had been loose on him, but now it clung to him as though it had shrunk two sizes in the decade since, or he’d grown by the same two.
I hadn’t noticed how much Noah had changed.
Why hadn’t I?
The answer was there, though I dared not acknowledge it.
“It’s late,” was the only response he gave as he crawled onto his side of the bed, his back to me.
“Noah, please . . . we haven’t . . .” When my hand rested on his side, he recoiled. Drawing my hand back into my lap, I pulled the covers over my body. Lying down, I fought off an onslaught of emotions, rejection and shame vying for leader. “I can’t even touch you anymore without you pulling away from me.”
A long sigh drifted from his side of the bed. “It’s not you.” The bed groaned when he shifted, though with my back turned, I couldn’t tell if he was scooting closer or farther away.
“When a naked woman reaches for a man, practically begging him to fuck her, and he reacts as if she’s stabbed him through the throat, it says otherwise.” Staring out the window that faced into the backyard, I wondered how many hours I’d spent blinking at that pane of glass, waiting for sleep to find me.