“I know this is going to sound crazy, but Anna’s dresser drawers are empty.” Cindy sounded confused and anxious as she hovered over her husband, but Frank didn’t even look up from the newspaper.  He was on the sports page, and Cindy knew his attention would be even slower than usual.

“Frank, did you hear me?” He still wasn’t listening, so she emphasized each word as if they were their own sentence. “Anna’s dresser drawers are empty.”

His eyes lifted up from the newspaper.  “Honey, why are you always going through her things? Can’t you just stay out of there?” He returned his gaze to the sports section, spilling a little milk and Cheerios from his spoon onto the paper.

Annoyed, Cindy turned and stomped from the kitchen. She went left down the hallway and into Anna’s room where the drawers from the dresser were still opened. Cindy ran her hands across the empty inside of the rough oak dresser drawers. She wondered if Frank didn’t believe her or if he just didn’t care.

Lately he hadn’t been listening to much of anything she had to say.  At first he was so attentive, so caring, but now his attention seemed to be fading.  Sometimes, she thought, they could go through an entire day in smiles and nods, neither one of them saying a word to each other.

But this was important, and Cindy was frustrated, standing alone, staring into the empty drawers. They seemed so bare and cold without the soccer shorts and pajama t-shirts. All of her socks were gone now, even the ones she didn’t wear anymore and the mismatches that hid in the back of the drawer.

Cindy shut the hollow drawer carefully, slowly hiding the emptiness inside.  She sat and laid back on the bed resting her head on the pink and purple throw pillows and ran her hand over the daisy embroidery of the bedspread.  She remembered the day that she and Anna had picked out that comforter.  Anna loved daisies and that is why she had pictures of them all over her room, pink ones that hung above her nightstand and purple beside her desk.  Cindy looked to them for comfort, but instead was met with empty walls.

“Frank!’ She screamed, “Come here quick!”

Frank came storming though the door as if expecting to see a ghost. Cindy stood up off the bed holding her hands to her chest.  “Frank, her posters, they are gone too.” She looked childlike and weak staring into Frank for comfort. “Frank, where are they?”

Frank exhaled hard and looked down at her with a subtle a sense of pity.

“Cindy, we need to talk about something.” He sounded uncomfortably calm, and that made Cindy step back toward the bed and stare at him blank and lonely.

“Cindy, I took Anna’s posters and her clothes from the drawers. I’ve been doing it for awhile now, taking her things and giving them away.”

Her stare turned cold and distant. “But, Frank, those are her things.” She seemed angry now, fighting back in Anna’s place. “You can’t just give them away.”

He sighed and looked down at the hardwood floors. “Cindy,” he said, “I really think it’s time.” He looked up and deep into Cindy eyes, this time with a sign of empathy.  “Honey, she’s been gone for over a year now, and I think it’s finally time to clear out her room.”

Cindy’s turned her head away from Frank’s stare.  Her eyes glossed and blinked and leaked onto her cheek.  Her shoulders slouched and she choked back hard before slumping onto the bed. She had been avoiding this day, this moment.

For the past year she had kept the room perfect, regularly dusting and vacuuming, opening the blinds in the morning and shutting them at night. She even bought live daisies to decorate the window sills and desk top. Cindy had tried desperately to keep the room alive, wildly hoping that the life in Anna’s room would some how bring back Anna’s life.

But now the dresser drawers sat empty and the walls stood bare, and the dust seemed to collect in seconds overtop of the picture frames and soccer trophies, and Cindy knew it couldn’t last forever. 

Frank sat down close into the side of Cindy and carefully set his arm around her back, motioning to her as if she were made of the thinnest type of paper. “Cindy, you can’t keep this up forever.”

Cindy turned and stared into Frank. Her face freckled with streams of quiet tears. The anger had faded and the hurt had fallen, and now Cindy stared back tired and calm, overcome by a sudden wave of exhaustion.  She took Frank’s arm from behind her back and set it in her lap, clasping his hand with hers. 

The two sat in silence, together, dreaming of the life that used to dance on the floor boards and laugh into the night.  They breathed in the fading scent of fresh Daisies, and blinked away the tears and the empty, because some things, they can’t last forever.