It first happened while we were waiting for the 7:48 subway home.
We were arguing. He’d been checking out the waitress at dinner, and while that wasn’t something I should’ve picked a fight over, it was our anniversary dinner. I couldn’t stop a few snarky comments from slipping out.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what else you want me to say,” he said, as we huddled together on the cold platform. “I wasn’t trying to check her out, like staring at her. It just happened.”
“Well it never happens with me, does it?”
“It did, all the time! When you were younger!”
When I was younger. I let out a low growl, like a primal animal, and stared daggers at him.
He took a few steps back.
His foot caught on a crumpled Burger King wrapper.
He slipped—
And then fell onto the tracks below.
The roar of the train. Thunk, thunk, thunk. The blinding lights. The blaring horn.
The metal flashed past, and I knew it was all over.
That night was the most miserable of my life. I screamed, I cried, and I felt like the most worthless human being in the universe. It was my fault. I’d picked a stupid fight. And now he was dead.
The police took my statement. Then I flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to the cars roll by. The soft tinkle of our wind chimes. The clatter of the dry branches in the wind.
I thought I would never fall asleep. Ever. But somehow, between the hours of 3 and 4, I must have passed out. Because the next thing I knew, I was waking up on a sunny morning.
With John sleeping next to me.
What the fuck?
He rolled over towards me and gave me a grin.
“Happy anniversary, babe.”
***
I assumed it was a dream. Somehow. It was the only way I could justify what happened. A horrible nightmare that I thought I’d never escape from, but did.
“So our reservation at Poulet is at 6–”
“Cancel it,” I said.
“Uh, what?”
“Cancel it. We’ll stay in. I’ll cook you dinner.”
He looked at me and frowned. “Uh, okay. Sure. Saves us some money, why not.”
That night, I spent hours in the kitchen frying chicken, roasting vegetables, and lighting candles. At 7:20 we sat down to dinner.
John took a bite of the chicken. “So Dan says, he needs me to finish it in an hour, or I’m fired. And I say—”
His eyes went wide.
“John?”
His hand shot up to his neck.
Oh, God, he was choking.
I ran over to him. Wrapped my arms around him and thrust my hands into his abdomen, attempting the Heimlich. Nothing. Smacked him on the back, shook him.
Nothing.
He slipped from my hands and fell onto the floor, skin white, eyes wide. Behind him, hanging on the wall, was our clock.
7:48 PM.
***
The next morning, I woke up to him beside me.
“Happy anniversary, babe.”
I grabbed my phone of the nightstand. Checked the date. FEBRUARY 16, 2022. I slapped the phone back down.
The same day. Again. How?
“Excited for tonight?”
No. No, I’m really not.
“I heard Poulet is–”
“We’re not going to Poulet,” I snapped.
“Uh, okay. You want to get a pizza? Or eat at home?”
“Maybe we should skip dinner entirely.”
“What?”
“I’ve been meaning to try this fasting thing. It’s, uh… it’s like a zen yoga thing. To commune with the universe and all that.”
“Well, we can do that tomorrow–”
“No!” I shouted, sitting upright in bed. “Tonight. It has to be tonight.”
He shrugged. “Okay. You feeling all right?”
It’s some sort of nervous breakdown. A reaction to stress. Nightmares, hallucinations, whatever they were. It wasn’t possible that I was living in some sort of perverted Groundhog Day. It just wasn’t. My aunt Theresa had struggled with vivid hallucinations, of demons and angels and death. I must have inherited it from her.
“I’m fine,” I replied.
Make appointment for psychiatrist, I noted to myself.
***
At 7:40, I “accidentally” locked John in the bathroom.
“Hey! Isabel! Can you hear me?!” His muffled voice filtered downstairs. “I accidentally locked myself in the bathroom!”
The bathroom’s had a shitty latch since forever. I never thought it would actually come in handy.
“Isabel!”
I set John’s fancy skillet on the stove. Oil bubbled and fizzled above the flame. I hummed to myself as I set down patties of ground beef, watching them shrink and darken. Sorry, John, I thought to myself. This is for your own good.
I glanced at the clock. 7:45.
“Isabel!”
Just a few more minutes…
I slid the spatula under the patties. One by one, I carefully flipped them over. They sizzled delightfully. I turned to the fridge and swung the door open—
Thump.
I bolted upright.
“John?” I shouted.
Nothing.
Oh God, oh God—
I raced up the stairs. It took me a few minutes to get the handle open, but when I did, it was a gruesome scene.
The floor was damp from my recent shower. Slippery. And there was John, lying across the cream tiles. His head leaned against the side of the tub, deep red pouring from the back of his head.
I began to scream.
***
“Happy anniversary, babe.”
“John, um… we need to talk.” I slipped my phone back on the nighstand, the screen glowing with the words FEBRUARY 16, 2022. “There’s, uh, been something happening to me.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Every day… is February 16. And every day, at exactly 7:48 PM… I see you die.” I waited for a reaction, a reply. But he just stared at me, his dark eyes wide with concern.
“At first I thought they were all nightmares. Really vivid ones. Then I thought I was hallucinating, like Aunt Theresa… because how could this be true? How could I be living the same day, over and over and over? But it all feels so real. I’ve been losing you, every night, for the past three days.”
John reached out his hands and took them in mine. He squeezed them, softly.
“I can’t take it anymore,” I said, my voice starting to crack. “I can’t keep watching you die, John. Whether it’s real or fake. So I need to get help… or something… because I don’t know what to do.”
John didn’t reply. He just kept his dark eyes on mine, his warm hands on my hands.
“John?”
“February 16,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. “Do you remember what day that is?”
“It’s our anniversary.”
“Anniversary… of what?”
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You can’t stay here, on this day, forever,” he said, squeezing my hands in his. “I love you.”
Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. I closed my eyes, losing myself in the kiss.
When I opened them—
I was lying in an empty bed.
The room was dark, thick curtains hanging over the glass. Only the faintest traces of morning sunlight filtered through. I jumped out of bed, my heart hammering in my chest.
“John? John?!”
But as I raced around the house—as I saw the closet, half-empty, the kitchen devoid of John’s trusty skillet and sauces, the driveway without his trusty old Camry—reality slowly melted back to me.
February 16.
It wasn’t the anniversary of our marriage.
It was the anniversary of his death.
Three years, now. Three years I’d been living in darkness, reliving his death. Not some horrific accident, some horrible death I couldn’t prevent.
Just a long, hard battle with cancer.
I walked over to the window and pulled back the curtains. Opened the window. The cold winter air poured over me, through my gray hair and my thin pajamas.
“I love you, too,” I whispered.