But it was impossible to sleep. Hudson’s mattress was comfortable. The sheets were luxurious. The temperature of the room was perfect.
None of that mattered.
My brain wouldn’t turn off. My body wouldn’t relax. Both were painfully aware that I was lying in Hudson’s bed. That I was lying on his comfortable mattress. That I was lying between his luxurious sheets. That I was in his perfectly heated room at night, in my nightgown. Without a bra.
I flopped around like a fish out of water, trying to get to sleep. My back, my side, my belly. I couldn’t find a position where I didn’t smell Hudson’s cologne. Finally, I gave up. Sitting up, I slapped the bed.
Damn it. I was going to have a long night. Luckily, I was moving into the bungalow tomorrow. Otherwise, I would have to fight Hudson for his couch. I couldn’t do another night like this. It was torture trying to sleep in Hudson’s bed.
I hadn’t brought a book, and there was no television in the bedroom. I had no idea how to pass the time without going crazy. Whatever I chose to do, I would have to do it away from Hudson’s room. It was making me crazy.
“Is milk ‘clean’?” I asked out loud. If Hudson had milk in the refrigerator, I could sneak a glass and some Hostess, and that would help to put me to sleep.
As quietly as I could, I stepped onto the floor and tiptoed down the stairs. When I got to the second floor, I stopped at the top of the staircase and listened for signs of life from Hudson.
Mr. Perfect didn’t even snore. He didn’t even breathe loudly.
It was complete silence from below. I had had a lot of experience sneaking down to kitchens in my adult life. I had successfully done it numerous times in recent years with Steve, and he was a light sleeper. So, I knew I could successfully get some milk without waking Hudson.
I clutched the handrail, stuck in my memories of my life with Steve. I had forgotten about my nighttime kitchen adventures. Why hadn’t I been able to sleep at night with Steve? What was keeping me up, making me too anxious to sleep? Had I been as unhappy as he was in our marriage? Not that I was aware. I had felt the same way about my marriage on the first day as I did in the twentieth year.
A bolt of self-realization hit me right there on the second floor of Hudson’s model townhouse.
Holy crap. I was never happy in my marriage. I had gotten pregnant and trapped in a miserable marriage, and it had never gotten unmiserable in all that time I was married.
That was the thing about unhappiness. One learned to live with it and pretend that all was hunky dory. Day-to-day life was a struggle, and a person didn’t want to add to it by dwelling on unhappinesses. Trapped in a marriage, I had been convinced that that was my lot in life until I died. So, I never questioned it. Instead, I had snuck downstairs to the kitchen at night. Miserable, but coping in the only way I knew how.
There, on the staircase, struck with an insight that would save me thousands of hours on a therapist’s couch, I was almost glad that Steve had finally left me for Tight Tammy, that he had saved me the trouble of being miserable for the rest of my life.
But I was onlyalmostnot, not actually glad, and I didn’t plan on forgiving Steve for a long time. I liked being angry at him. It helped me deal with my fear of the future. What was going to happen to me without support? What was my son going to think of a mother who at this time of her life had nothing to show for it? No home, no work history, no accomplishments.
Yep, I was going to stay angry at Steve for a long time.
And I was going to find myself a glass of milk.
I tiptoed downstairs. It was pitch black except for the glow of the clock on the oven. I walked softly and carefully toward it, trying to remember where the furniture was so I wouldn’t crash into it and wake Hudson.
I was doing well when Hudson tossed and turned on the couch. I stopped in my tracks. He turned, again, and punched his pillow.
“Damn it,” he muttered and punched the pillow each time he spoke a word. “I can sleep anywhere, anytime. Why can’t I sleep now? Why can’t I stop thinking?”
He turned again, just like I had done in his bed, like a fish out of water. I felt like I was spying on him, so I cleared my throat to let him know I was there.
“Eliza?” he asked.
“Sorry. I came down for some milk. I was having trouble sleeping.”
He turned on the end table lamp by his head. “You, too?”
He was sleeping without a shirt, and I continued toward the refrigerator so I wouldn’t stare at his pectoral muscles.
“I hope you have milk, even though it might break one of your commandments.”
He sat up and put a shirt on. “There’s hot chocolate mix in the pantry.”
I opened the pantry. It was a cornucopia of every comforting food item from the interior of a supermarket. No wonder Hudson’s friends had been ogling it. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
I grabbed the hot chocolate mix and a few packages of Twinkies, now that I knew they were Hudson’s favorite. I poured milk into a small saucepan and heated it on the stove.
