Fourteen Days

September 7. It’s a Tuesday. I’m home, in the middle of a long weekend. Yesterday was Labor Day, today and tomorrow are Rosh Hoshanah. So I’m home, and it’s a slow, sad five days in a house without my Julie. 

She died two weeks ago. Fourteen years with her, fourteen days without her. Somehow the latter feels longer than the former. 


I keep thinking that I hear her. The house emanates sounds it didn’t used to make. I keep thinking there’s a rustling sound from the next room over, or that I hear her jumping up on the table in the other room. Lord knows why, but I always get up to look to see what I’m hearing, and I’m always a little surprised when she’s not there. 


And she keeps popping up in my dreams. The old Julie, that’s the one I dream about. Full of life, never far away from me. 


It’s not just me, for what that’s worth. Angela said the same thing the other day — that she keeps thinking she hears Julie. Maybe it’s her spirit, still in the house, saying hello. Or maybe I’m just going loony. Sounds or no, the house isn’t the same place without her. It lacks an edge, an energy. 

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