She doesn't think I hear her sneak away at night, but I do. I have grown accustomed to the peeling and re-tucking of sheets, the loss of heat. I have timed how long it takes her to put on a robe and follow the hall light. Sometimes I stir as she goes. I do this on purpose. I am the cause of panic in her footsteps as she stops, waits, and listens for breathing to form another pattern. I let her go because she is my wife and I love her.
The first time it happened, I'm not sure how I felt. She didn't come back until morning, and her body was strange and new. There are certain things I never thought I'd have to experience, and most of these things I thought I would face with her. We've been married almost thirty years now, but I've known Anne for much longer. I've seen her in tenth grade gym shorts spinning in and out of cartwheels, and I've seen her in my old flannel shirts, standing on a chair to paint the ceiling, our youngest son pointing out the spots she has missed.
Lately I am sensing an excitement, an urgency about Anne. Her attitude towards me has not changed; it's an attitude towards something else. She is constantly watching the Canadian geese fly past the house. She is fascinated by airplanes, looking up at them until there are white streaks in the sky. Anne has taken so many books out of the library on the subject of flying that I don't know how she reads them all. One time I came home from a fishing trip and she was sweeping an assortment of feathers into a dustpan. There was grease on her cheeks and she smelled like a garage.
I have the feeling that it's almost time when she won't be sneaking out anymore, and I don't yet know what my reaction will be when this happens. We're a newly retired couple and have developed habits within the past few months that I am now starting to like. Anne takes her naps, I do odd jobs around the house. She wakes up around four o'clock, always with this look on her face like she's done something wrong, and maybe she has and maybe she hasn't but either way we still eat dinner. It's autumn in full swing, so we take a walk together after digestive cookies (we eat those shamelessly) and her arm has never felt so snug around my own. These are just some of the things that will change when Anne stops sneaking out.
The next night she is so quiet that I almost miss hearing her leave the room. Tonight the pattern is different, though. She closes the door all the way, and she doesn't look back at me like she usually does, as though she might never see me again.
Outside on the lawn a motor sounds. It is an unfamiliar engine, and I am up by the window trying to locate it because I know that it involves Anne.
Soon I see it. The sound. It now has a shape, hovering by the telephone lines, and I'm afraid that it's as unsteady and susceptible to getting tied into the lines as a kite. But it isn't a kite, it is Anne, and she is flying, and she is gone.
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