When?

WHEN?

“I’m leaving you,” says Travis as he walks out the front door. Anne can hear the truck start up and rev down the driveway. She stands staring at the front door unable to comprehend the reality she finds herself in. She stares for half an hour, the ceiling fan twirling, the aquarium filter gargling, and her heart dying.

A phone ring jerks her out of her nightmare and she automatically walks across the room, picks it up, listens. It’s the police. Travis has been in some sort of accident. He’s asking for her. He may die. Anne grabs her coat, keys, purse, leaves.

Anne pulls up to a scene of flashing red lights, glass littered pavement, uniformed men looking official. She walks down a grassy embankment wet with dew, and finds Travis lying twisted and bloody, three paramedics doing their best. She walks around into his line of sight, he sees her, and says,
“I’m still leaving you.”

Through three months of hospital care, Anne is there. She restructures her life to be there every minute possible, sleeps in hospital chairs, lives on sandwiches. She helps the nurse bathe Travis, changes his bedpan, reads him the newspaper. Still, every afternoon when Anne walks into the room, Travis
says, “I’m still leaving you.”

Back at home, Travis is on the sofa drinking himself to death. Anne teaches him to walk again, massages his legs, hides his wheelchair, liquor. He curses, rants, throws things, swings his canes, and every morning shouts,
“I’m leaving you!”

One day, Travis doesn’t yell at Anne. The house is silent except for the gurgling and twirling. She doesn’t even notice, goes about her routine, fixes his breakfast, goes to get the paper. When she comes back inside she sees him, head tilted, tongue lolling out, eyes fixed on the ceiling fan. She asks his corpse, “When?"