Ed knows I’m here. He can see and feel me here the way I can feel his presence all over this house, and even throughout the Richmond district where I walk. He doesn’t normally visit me in dreams when I am here, but he did last night.

In my dream, I walked into a wide hallway in a nondescript building, and I see him standing there, facing me with a straight face, a slight spark of surprise in his eyes. And like clockwork, I immediately run up to him, grab his neck, hug him, and burst into tears. I tell him how happy I am to see him again and how much I’ve missed him. All of this is becoming like a broken record in my dreams. He puts his arms around me and pats me on my back.

“Yvonne,” he says sternly. “You have to stop this. You do this every time you see me. You have to stop crying. Don’t cry. This just isn’t healthy.”

“I can’t help it,” I respond through my sobs. “I just really, really miss you. And I just really wish you were really here.”

“I am here,” he says calmly while rubbing my back. “I’m here.”

But you aren’t, I think to myself. After these fleeting yet deeply cherished moments that my subconscious has conjured up, you will drift away from me, and I will drift off and eventually wake up. And in my bed in our old bedroom, I will awaken and turn to my right and see an empty bed next to me, the one you used to sleep in, sometimes soundly, sometimes tormented.

And that’s exactly what happened. At 3:30am this morning, I abruptly woke up and started coughing lightly, and I turned to my right and saw your empty bed…. your empty, empty bed.