graveyard shift

She gathers her clothes, quickly, pulls herself into the bathroom, dresses with haste. She will not kiss him goodbye, she knows. She never does. She believes, odd as it may seem, childish as it sounds, that she has only a finite number of kisses to give, or she has made herself believe that, because to her the kissing is the most intimate of actions and she doesn’t share them with many, if any. He will not wake for another hour. It is always this way. The meet, enjoin, she lies awake till it’s almost light, then leaves, while he sleeps. On the way home she will wonder why she keeps doing this, like this, not with him, but doing it, period. She comes up with answers, but never likes any of them, because none of them are truly honest and, despite even this, she considers herself an honest person. Her cell phone rings. It is her daughter. She wonders why her mother is late coming home, again, from the graveyard shift. She’d awoken and mom wasn’t there and dad just told her to go back to sleep. “I love you,” she tells the girl. “I’ll be home, soon.” And she is, mostly.