Take Care, Sara

touched her forehead to the door, hot tears pooling in her eyes and dropping to her cheeks. She closed her eyes, shuddering breaths wracking her shoulders, her whole body. Her mind formed the image of his laughing face with the crinkles around his pale blue eyes and she couldn’t move from the pain that came along with it.
    She missed his eyes the most. They’d been electrifying, charged with life and passion, able to see every part of Sara there was to see and those she’d rather weren’t seen. The thought of them never being open again, the thought of never staring into them and getting lost in the blue ocean that was her husband’s eyes, it was heart wrenching. Unbearable.
    He used to watch her paint. He’d sit in a chair in the corner of the room and watch her for hours. He’d said it soothed him to watch her work. A sob was torn from her and Sara slapped her palm against the door. She wanted him back. Sara wanted to feel his arms around her; she wanted to have his scent cocoon her. This emptiness inside of her; it was killing her.
    “Don’t cry, Sara.”
    She inhaled sharply, spinning around. Her eyes scanned the kitchen, looking for a body and face to put with the voice. There was no one. I’m losing my mind. Sara slumped against the door. She put a shaking hand to her temples, closing her eyes.
    “He wouldn’t want you to cry for him. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to hurt. But you still have to live. You have to go on, Sara.”
    Sara kept her eyes closed. The voice seemed to leave only when she tried to find it. “I can’t go on without him. He’s supposed to be here, with me.” Pain tightened her throat, made it almost impossible to swallow.
    “He is, Sara. He’ll always be with you.”
    With a hand over her mouth and an arm across her stomach, Sara leaned over, trying to shrink in and away from the hurt that never went away. It had wrapped its arms around her and held her tightly within its grasp. She had to get away, from the pain, from the voice that wasn’t really there.
    Sara lurched forward, toward the phone. One voice could ground her. One voice could give her relief. She punched in the numbers, pacing in front of the refrigerator, jittery and sick feeling. One ring. Two. Three. Sara whimpered, beginning to pull the phone from her ear.
    “Must be one of those days again, huh?” She closed her eyes, immediate relief dropping her shoulders. Sara leaned her back against the fridge as she listened.
    “First time he talked about you I knew you were it for him. There was this look on his face. It’s hard to explain, even now. It was shock and joy and kind of a sick look all rolled into one. The look of love. I teased him about it and he punched me in the gut, so I knew it was true. He fell for you fast and hard.” He went silent.
    Sara wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
    His voice was softer when he spoke again. “He said you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. More beautiful than the sun or a flower or any kind of scenery I could imagine. That’s what he said, Sara. He said when he looked at you he couldn’t breathe and his stomach went all crazy. He said when he looked at you he was home.”
    A sob escaped her and the phone dropped from her hand, clattering as it hit the floor. Sara went to her hands and knees next to it, her head dropping forward. It hurt too much. The pain swept through her, wracking her body with tremors. Make it go away. Please. Make it go away.
    Sara pulled herself to her feet, eyes trained on a drawer next to the sink. She was pulled to it by an invisible force, her fingers locking on the top of it. Once it was open, Sara stared at the collection of knives; all different shapes and sizes. She closed her eyes, jumping when someone pounded on the front door. Her eyes went back to the knives.
    The door burst open and Sara reflexively slammed the drawer shut, whirling around to face the intruder, her pulse racing. How had he gotten there so fast?
    They looked nothing alike. Lincoln Walker was bigger, taller, with gray eyes and darker hair. But when Sara looked at him, she saw his brother. It was in the perpetually lowered eyebrows, the square jaw, and the stance. Lincoln was the moodier, easier to anger, brother; her husband the more amiable, if slightly wild, brother. Nothing alike in personalities or looks and yet she saw her husband in Lincoln. Maybe because she wanted to.
    “What are you doing, Sara?” he demanded.
    “I’m—what