Between Sleep

I wake up before the dawn, and roll over into lumpy warmth and comfort. It smells like a boy, but I mind less and less. It grumbles and chuckles when I poke it awake. And then it opens bright blue eyes, and the day begins again.

How odd to hear his shaver as I run my morning shower. How strange to step over his cast-off pajamas on my way to plug in my curling iron. He leaves before I do, and though I should be in the bedroom getting ready for the day, I can't help standing with him in the hall as he chooses his shoes, closes his jacket, and heaves his bag over his shoulders. I'll see him again in a few hours, but still. I don't want to waste any of the precious morning minutes together.

I'm always a bit crankier in the evenings when I get home. Tired and cold and still so unused to sharing my space with another. This was always the time I most needed solitude. But he's home already, in his socks and wrinkled slacks and untucked shirt. He's been on the computer, and the kitchen needs cleaning. But he comes out to hold me, to ask about my day, and somehow that makes it all so much better. Together we'll make dinner, and eat sitting on the floor by our cardboard-box table.

And at night we'll laugh together, snuggled in our bed which is our only furniture so far. Until the lights go out, and we lay talking and confiding. When sleep comes, she finds us together.