I Miss My Wife

A very short expression of sorrow. No sex, no BTB, no RAAC. Not sure where it should go, but Loving Wives seemed the best bet.

[-----------------------------------------------------------------------]

We finished packing up her closet. Some clothes were headed to Goodwill, some to a yard sale my sister was putting on for the stuff of Diana's she thought she could sell. I let her decide the final destination of almost all Diana's possessions.

I kept some things as mementos, things that had special meaning for her and me. Or those things that had larger monetary value. My sister was like a vulture; she had her eye on all of Diana's good jewelry and artwork. I practically had to pry it out of her hands.

Mostly, though, I kept things that would remind me of my wife, things that would make her absence easier to bear. God, I'd miss her. I'd miss her next to me at night, I miss her breakfast in the morning, her dinners at night, and the sex; yes, I was definitely going to miss that. Diana was my life. She made each day worth living. She'd always catered to my needs, food, sex, clothing, whatever would make me comfortable and happy, she went out of her way to accomplish. For me.

And before you get the wrong idea, it was mutual. I strove to provide for her every whim, every desire. We were a pair, a team; she was my other half in every sense. Plato would have agreed with that assessment. I showered her with jewelry, the very jewelry I was now having to snatch from my sister's greedy hands. I took her to the fanciest restaurants, bought her clothes that stretched our finances to the max, and took her on her dream vacations. And that girl could dream.

But in the end, she lost sight of my comfort in her pain. Pain that I hadn't even suspected.

And now she was gone. I was emptying the house, selling all our furniture, all our artwork (except the pieces I kept as mementos), and even the house itself. It was all too painful a reminder of the death that had occurred there. In my bedroom; in my bed. How could I continue here, especially without the love of my life.

Her mother was here today, angry still with me. She blames me for Diana's absence. She blames me for all the death and bloodshed. As if I planned it -- as if I wanted it. I didn't. I tried to tell her how much I had been in love and how Diana was my life.

She didn't believe me. My mother-in-law was there to demand, or I should say, DEMAND, Diana's jewelry. Or at least the pieces she had inherited from her two grandmothers. Family heirlooms, she claimed. Well, I was Diana's family. And those were mementos, maybe not of our love, but at least of our life together. When I looked at those pieces, it brought back pleasant memories. It lets me remember Diana in the glory of our love.

Mom (I'd lost my mother, so Diana's mother had always been Mom to me, and even though she now demanded that I stop calling her that, I still thought of her that way) claimed, hurtfully, "Max, you only keeping those pieces because they were the only valuable pieces my daughter had." What I'd bought her, Mom claimed, was cheap junk. I retorted that Diana had loved my gifts and had worn them daily.

My mother-in-law's face twisted up in fury. "And you just keeping all her things to spite me. You don't want me to have anything to keep for her!"

With threats of lawyers and lawsuits, my mother-in-law left. I returned to packing, first checking the boxes my sister had been packing and removing the things she was trying to smuggle out without my knowledge. I will say my sister had good taste -- she only tried to steal the best of Diana's things.

We'd gone to the funeral months ago, even though my love's family didn't want us there. They all blamed me, just like Mom did. They thought it was all my fault. Maybe I could have handled it better, but I'd been in love and had been blind to the bad things that could happen. When you're in love, all things possible, they say. You just never realize that not all things are good. Bad things do happen, even to those in love.

I'd offered to pay to have "Beloved of Max Weller" engraved on her headstone, but her family thought that it was disgusting that I would even suggest that. Her mother started hitting me, and her father tried to choke me. Then the rest of the family tried to join in, and I was lucky to escape relatively unscathed. Even now, I must watch out for her family. The threats and harassments are never ending.

Well, now I was going to leave. The house was sold, all her things had been sold, and I was going to slip off into the night. Away from her family, and away from her family. Leave it all behind.

On the way out of town, I stopped by the grave to say a final goodbye. I looked down at the headstone; absent was the "Beloved of Max Weller" I had wanted. It just said, "Julie Krum, 2003-2022. Taken from us too early."

I cried a little, and apologized again for not realizing that Diana was coming home that day. I had been in love with them both, my wife, and my work intern. I thought a night in my bed at home with my love was something that would be okay, especially since Diana was scheduled to be out of town that night. And it had been really good, until my wife burst into the room and used my Glock to put nine rounds into my lover.

Now I'd lost them both, Julie to the grave and Diana to the State prison system. Both families hate me, blame me for everything, when if Diana had just talked to me, I had been sure that we would all have been very happy, together.

Was it really my fault that my wife was such a hot head? I don't think so, but who the hell understands women?