[Henry to Clare:] “You know that I love you. Will you marry me?” [Clare:] “Yes… Henry. […] But you know, really… I already have.” (Book 1. Chapter 11.Paragraph 54) – The Time Traveler’s Wife
Like the Time Traveler does… more often than I would like. The Time Traveler has been travelling again. It’s getting a bit easier (not much but a bit). The girls seem to handle to news better (you know, until he actually doesn’t come home after work the first day of his travels). I get exhausted. I never sleep well when he is away. After almost 10 years of marriage, I miss the weight of him beside me at night.
I get a bit creeped out being home alone with the girls at night. I make sure all the doors are locked and blinds are closed. I leave lights on sporadically throughout the house. My usual bedtime of 9:00 or 10:00 at night ticks slowly to midnight or 1:00 a.m. I wake often. I hear noises. I think I hear the girls even when I don’t.
Then the Time Traveler gets home and we all seem to exhale.
The other night while he was away, I was locking up and getting ready for bed. I remember that I had left the girls jackets and pants on the deck covered in sand and it was calling for rain. I opened the patio door and stood outside shaking the sand of the pants and banging out the boots. I came back in to put them away and as I walked by the hallway something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye and I startled. There stood the cutest,little (almost) 3-year-old wiping her tired eyes… “I need you, Mama… to carry me back to bed.” My heart racing, I picked her up and told her it was still bed time and she should make sure to go back to sleep.
The next night (the Time Traveler still gone) after cleaning up and watching a show that I had PVRd, I called it a night and climbed into bed. Knowing I wouldn’t sleep well, I grabbed a magazine and turned on the television. At about midnight, my body still not showing any signs of shutting down for the day, I hear a noise in the hallway outside my door. I look up to see that same cutest, little (almost) 3-year-old standing in my door way wiping her tired eyes. I immediately turn off the television so she doesn’t realize what I was doing and want to stay up to watch too. She looked at me and asked where Piper was. “She is in her bed, sleeping.” She proceeded to walk around to her Daddy’s side of the bed and climb in. She laid down and reached out to touch my arm. Then she promptly sat up and said, “Mama, I watch TV?”
Guess I am not the only one who doesn’t sleep well when the Time Traveler is away.
