11 months without Archie at home

Tonight was the first night he didn't come home. He had to spend the night at Stanford, so that they could insert the chest tube the next morning to apply the killing drug.

Tomorrow Nen would wake up and wonder where daddy is. I was waiting for Archie's call to tell me when they would do the procedure so that I could go, but when Archie called, before 6 am, they had already done it. The process had started, the clock was ticking, the spell was cast, the death sentence pronounced. It was a matter of time.

This place that was once a home, witness to our love, is now an incomplete dwelling, a living memory of our what life could be. The taking turns to get up with Nen in the morning, the walks to the park as a family, the dinners together, the outings to restaurants, the playing in the living-room, the baths, the breasfeeding, the discoveries of parenthood. Yes... of what life could be but... isn't.