Handfast

There are little things about our life together that I am afraid I will forget. Quiet, daily moments that will be swept aside in memory for the big events. There will always be big events; graduations, birthdays, Christmas mornings. Give me the memory of his spoon stirring my morning cup of coffee. The joke we shared through puffs of breath during a late-afternoon run. I do not want to forget the rise and fall of his back as sleeps on his stomach on a dreary Sunday afternoon. The scent of his hair wet from the shower, shampoo and Ivory soap and something that is only him, indescribable.

The rains come again, heavy and incessant. It is summer, it is green and gray and strange to look at the calendar and think: July. This is July. We take a nap Sunday afternoon, because the rain starts again and the wind sends it sideways on the bedroom windows, and it is dark and cool and the weather of hibernation and secrets. We each claim a side of the bed, legs and arms akimbo, spread out, taking space. When it is hot, we neglect to snuggle close, we are a duo that is solo in sleep.

Despite the length of the bed between us, there are times I will wake in the night to find our hands clasped together; in our sleep we find each other, hold on. We start out sleeping apart, I on my side, he on his, curled around pillows or snuggled tight around blankets. Each lost to our own worlds. But somehow in the night we untangle, we cross the space of cold sheets and tossed pillows, our hands reach out and we weave together, my hand in his, his in mine. Unconscious. Unknown. Unable to let go even in dreams.

Some summer day it may not be the sole pair of us; we may have children, we may have a wagging-tailed dog, we may have a house shared with parents or relatives. Some day it may just be him, alone and waiting in this world, this life. Some day, it may be just me, a husband gone, children grown, my hair gray and thin and sparse. On that day, I want to remember the space of time when it was just me and him, our bed an island in a sea of dreams, my fingers moving through sleep, his hand sneaking a way through parted sheets, both safely reaching out in darkness to hold the hand that was made for the other.