The Between Years

stopped rolling in, including the late ones, and eventually all the flowers wilted and died, and the scent that had permeated our house seemed to have been carried off by the wind. Our abode had returned to being somewhat like it was before Kenny's birth, except for a gaping and irreparable void.

    The silence eventually made me break down and cry and I knew it would eventually drive Randy insane. No parent can be prepared for what life will be like after their child has passed on, not even if their child is very young, or if they've received considerable notice. We wanted to live our lives as normally as possible, but that proved to be a task. I would advise anyone not to make the mistakes I did (more on that later) because they only serve to bog you down.

    Maybe my biggest blunder was thinking that Kenny's death was the end. Perhaps my reason for having him cremated was to force an ending I wasn't ready to accept on my own. Because, deep down, I think I tried to keep Kenny's spirit from dying, and I never mourned properly because I still genuinely expected him to return one day.

CHAPTER 19
    As I've said, when Kenny died, I heard the same phrases over and over: “I'm so sorry” or “That's such a shame.” Others told me that I should call on them any time I needed anything, and maybe a few even meant it. But after a month, the questions became much more brazen like, “Will you and Randy have another baby?”

    I can tell you that my answer is much different now than it had been then. Not that I'd ever taken a definitive stance on the issue. I just felt like it would be impossible to journey down that road again when I'd not only failed to recover from the trauma I'd experience, but I didn't even know where to begin.

    If it happened then it happened, I'd decided (which was the answer I gave to those who were too curious for their own good). But we didn't need to worry much about an unplanned pregnancy since neither of us had much interest in sex for the first while. A kiss goodnight sufficed, and one un-spirited romp occurred only because we feared what would happen to our relationship if intimacy took a nosedive. We decided that such behaviour wasn't healthy in a couple under thirty and that we would seek help if it continued. Randy eventually regained his sexual appetite in full force shortly after, as did I, but it sure wasn't simultaneous.

    Maybe some will think I'm mean, or a tease, but the street runs both ways, and I wasn't going to do anything I didn't feel like doing. Besides, you have to live with someone to truly understand them. I knew what Randy had in mind, which was far more than to keep our sex life alive.

    Long story short, life consisted of going to work, coming home, eating, and sleeping. Lather, rinse, repeat. And aside from the occasional roll in the hay, our lives had become painfully dull. We cancelled our vacation to Florida, and didn't go out anymore either, partly because we had an unexpected funeral bill to pay for, but you get the picture.

    But we were plagued by another issue, something we should have done, but we couldn't bring ourselves to do. If you ask me, this was as much Randy's fault as it was mine. We both preferred to have an exceptionally clean house. I don't think that made us neat freaks, we just wanted to take excellent care of what little we owned. Rubber cleaning gloves, J-cloths and toilet brushes were as common around our house as the knickknacks. Randy tended to all of the yard work and some handy work inside. In turn, I kept every room spotless. To juggle that with my job, I took on a room every weekday and wound up with the weekends to myself, housework free. Unfortunately, I can no longer boast that now that Randy is gone.

    On Mondays, I cleaned the bathroom, on Tuesday, I tackled the dining room, on Wednesdays I scrubbed the kitchen, on Thursday I got on my hands and knees to clean the bathroom, and on Friday I continued to clean Kenny's bedroom. By cleaning, I didn't meant I performed a quick once-over to keep the room from clouding up with dust. Oh no, I kept that room in immaculate shape.

    But maybe immaculate cleanliness isn't an accurate way to describe it. Let's call it preservation instead. Yes, I dusted, vacuumed beneath the crib, and washed the bed linens on a regular basis. I opened the window to change the air. I kept the dresser and bookshelves wiped down so regularly that the room always offered a faint scent of lemon pledge. But I can't say