WHEN DALE pulls up beside our little blue house on the corner, my stomach is in knots. How am I going to face, without Sam, all that represents our life together?

I walk in the back door and am enthusiastically greeted by Sasha. I kneel on the kitchen floor and hug her tightly; our family of three reduced to two.

During the day, it had been decided that Ed, Harry and his wife, Katrina, will stay with me—the crisis-workers assigned to my case. Katrina makes tea with a shot of Tia Maria then passes around a plate of Sam’s chocolate-covered granola bars. I sit in front of the fireplace, glaring at the stairs.

“How am I gonna sleep in our bed?” I ask.

“Just do the best you can,” says Katrina.

But walking into our bedroom is like seeing Sam in the ICU after first being told of his brain death. Our bed, my vanity, and the pictures on the wall all look the same and of course, are the same. But everything else has changed. Sam will never sleep beside me again, or empty the change from his pockets onto the counter, or pray to the picture of the Saint tucked in the corner of the mirror before climbing into bed.

I take a deep breath and open the closet doors but stumble backward at the sight of his clothes. I hold up to my face his gray dress shirt, worn to the wedding in Disneyland last week, and breathe in his scent as if it can sustain me. I pull out the flowered Hawaiian shirt he liked to barbeque in and his blue plaid boxer shorts then shut the doors again.

Sasha lies on the bed, watching me closely as I brush my teeth with Sam’s electric toothbrush. I then put on his shirt and shorts, take his wedding ring from my vanity and place it on his chain around my neck. He never wore his wedding ring to work because he didn’t want the “shit rats” to know he was married.

I climb into his side of the bed and put my head on his pillow, clutching his ring tightly. Then, like a wolf in her den or a Canada Goose in her nest, I begin mourning the death of my mate. And just to be on the safe side, I throw in a prayer to the God Sam believed in.

When I close my eyes, the events of the day replay themselves again and again:

Sam fell; your husband is brain-dead; heart, liver and kidneys?

Trauma unit; your husband is brain-dead; skin, tissues and kneecaps?

He’s in rough shape; your husband is brain-dead; open casket?

I don’t know how to stop the negative thoughts, so I come up with a nicer one.

“Come to me in my dreams,” I whisper into the darkness. “And maybe you could turn on your watch light or something…you know, as a sign that you’re OK.”

I AWAKE at 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning to see a large reddish-orange light framing the edges of the entire bedroom window. I blink a few times to make sure I’m actually awake then watch as the light slowly dissipates. Then I recall my dream. I was in an underground parkade and noticed blood spatter on the concrete a few meters away. I flew toward it, my body parallel to the ground, but when I got to the blood, my field of vision simply faded to black—like the end of an old movie.

That I actually feel a sense of peace tells me that when Sam’s head hit the cement, it was simply over for him. I know now that he didn’t suffer.

I fall back to sleep for an hour but when I awake the second time, the horrific hurt crashes into me. There are no mysterious lights, strange dreams or peaceful feelings to buffer the reality. All I feel is excruciating emotional pain and sheer terror.

There’s a knock on my door. “Can I come in?” It’s Katrina.

“Yeah.”

“How did the night go?”

“Brutal.”

She sits on the edge of my bed. “What can I do?”

“You could make poached eggs,” I say. “Those were Sam’s favourite.”

“You got it.”

Ed and Harry are waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

“Good morning, Googie,” says Harry.

I manage a smile. “Good morning.”

Ed asks me how I’m doing.

“I’d love a coffee.”

Then I wander over to the dining room window and look out at our mountain ash tree. The bright red berries stand out against the yellow leaves and blue sky. It’s a beautiful image. Harry walks up and hands me my coffee.

“Thanks,” I say, turning to him. “I’m glad it’s a sunny day.”

“You’re gonna be OK, aren’t you?”

I nod slowly. “Yup. Someday.”

After breakfast, I’m passing by the living room window on my way upstairs when I see one of Sam’s black work socks hanging from the birch tree. It’s as if my life has turned into one of those kid’s books—the kind where you have to find ten things wrong with a picture, like a person walking on air or a house with no door. I squint. That’s not Sam’s sock. It’s a squirrel hanging upside down, eating from the bird bell. Sasha joins me at the window and when she catches sight of the squirrel, barks ferociously, tail wagging. Sam always got a kick out of Sasha’s behavior toward squirrels. I smile.

Then I remember that, according to the clipboard of fun, I was supposed to work day shift today and was going to duck out early so that my mom and I could take Sasha to the annual ‘blessing of the animals’ ceremony held in honour of St. Francis of Assisi—the patron saint of animals—at the Anglican Church where Sam and I were married.

Plan B.

I go upstairs. In Sam’s shower, I use his shampoo and soap—personal items he’ll never touch again. I run the water good and hot just like Sam did and the sorrow surges to the surface. Sobbing, I wonder how I’ll ever get through this. I step out of the shower and am reaching for Sam’s towel when I realize that’s one of the last things I’d seen him touch, so I know I can’t disturb it. I reach instead for my own towel which is when I notice my pink packet of birth control pills on the counter.

“I think I’m gonna need some help in here!”

Moments later, Katrina finds me in the bathroom trying to put on my bathrobe, but my hands are shaking so badly, I can’t tie it up.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

I push past her and slump onto the bed. “I can’t fucking handle this.”

“What happened?”

I open up my hand.

She looks at the birth control pills. “Uh oh.”

“He’ll never touch me again.” I don’t recognize my voice.

“Adri…”

“We’ll never make love again.”

She bites her lip.

“We’re never going to be parents,” I say. “I knew we probably wouldn’t have kids, but this makes it pretty fucking final.”

Then she holds me as I cry. And cry and cry.