Three Thirty Three
The phone rings. It’s 3:33 A.M. I haven’t been able to sleep all night. My wife and I had gotten into a fight about nothing in particular and she left saying that she loves me but needs time to think.
“Mary, is that you? Where are you? Why don’t you come home, we can work this out.” I said quickly so she didn’t have time to argue with me more.
“Mr. Noble?” It was a man’s voice, one that I did not recognize. My mind goes off on a tangent thinking of different things that Mary could have done. My first thought was that she was going to leave me or that she had been seeing someone behind my back, waiting to tell me but didn’t have the guts until now.
“This is him.” There is a little shake in my voice not knowing what to expect next. “And who is this?”
“This is officer West with the Manchester PD.”
“What is this about?”
“It’s about your wife, Mary, Mr. Noble.”
I am relieved. I am now thinking that Mary had just gone out and got drunk and drove and got arrested. “Yes, is she alright? Is she down at the police station?”
Officer West hesitates for a second, only a second. “No, Mr. Noble, she was in a car accident…” He trails off.
“Well then, which hospital is she at?” I’m starting to get frustrated, I just want him to tell me where my wife is and what happened.
He seemed to have found the words to say while I was asking where my wife was, because he did not hesitate again. “Mr. Noble, your wife was killed in the accident. She died at the scene, I am sorry for you loss…” I dropped my phone, I couldn’t think of anything else besides our fight.
A week passes by. Family and friends try to comfort me but i do no feel that they know the extent of what I have lost. I could have done many things differently that night. I haven’t slept since then, I’ve been thinking only about the events leading up to that phone call. I drown myself in alcohol just for the peace of not having to feel anything. There is nothing left for me; I don’t know what I am supposed to do.
Both of our families have been staying at our house since the day after they heard the news. Mary’s mother asks one day, “So, what are the plans for the funeral?”
“Umm…” that is the only response that I can give. I didn’t even think about it. I have been so caught up in my own grief that I hadn’t thought about burying her yet.
“You haven’t planned anything yet, have you?” Mary’s mother asked coldy. Mary’s mother and I had never gotten along since, well, ever.
“No I haven’t.” She knew the answer before I did. “Can you please take care of it for me?” I knew she would say yes, not because she thinks it’s the hardest thing I will ever do, but because it’s her baby girl and she thinks I will screw it up.
It’s been two weeks since the funeral. Both of our families have left and they both leave me to my despair. People keep calling me and asking me if I am alright. They are worried that I am going to kill myself. I don’t blame them for thinking that. The last day I was sober was her funeral. It’s the only way that I can fall asleep and forget about what happened. Once night when I finally do fall asleep I have this dream, and Mary is in it.
“Hold your head up, Patrick.” She says this as if she has been with me all this time.
“How can I when I know that you aren’t here with me?” I say. She smiles at me, her usual toothy smile. I feel my face get hot, I know I am blushing, I do every time she smiles at me.
“What were you doing that night? Why didn’t you just come home?” I wanted to know everything.
“I was trying to save you.” She then fades away into the morning light.
I wake up and for once i do not take up a bottle. I sit in bed and think about the dream. What does she mean I was trying to save you? That doesn’t make any sense, should I have tried to save her? Or at least try to say that i was sorry for what I had said to her. I keep replaying the dream over and over in my head starting to feel better for once since that night. Then the phone rings and I snap out of my thoughts. I look at the clock, it is 3:33 P.M.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Noble, this is Dr. Sterling from the coroner’s office, I have the results from Mary’s autopsy.”
“Yes, what did you find? Was she under the influence at all when she died?” I ask.
“No, Mr. Noble your wife was not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol that night.” This made my head spin. I was sure that was what caused the accident. “But, we found something else.”
“What did you find?”
“Well, from the looks of it, Mary had stage 4 ovarian cancer. Had she been receiving any treatment for it?” Dr. Sterling asks.
Just like the night she died, I dropped the phone, finally realizing what Mary had meant in my dream, when she told me that she was trying to save me.
