I feel like an absolute monster sometimes. Most of the time, really. I’m an old man, a retired teacher, for god’s sake, and I should know better. Should have more... well, more *grace*, I suppose. But I don’t. Not anymore. Not after everything. My wife, bless her heart, had Alzheimer's for years. Years. It started slowly, you know? Just little things. Misplacing keys, forgetting names. Then it got worse. A lot worse. She stopped knowing who I was, most days. Sometimes she’d look right through me, like I was just another piece of furniture. Other times she’d accuse me of stealing her things, or she’d try to walk out the door in the middle of the night, convinced she needed to go home to her parents. Her parents, who’ve been dead for forty years. I was her full-time keeper, basically. Her warden. And I loved her, I truly did. Or I tried to, anyway. The woman I married, the one I loved, she was gone a long time before her body finally gave out. And then she died. A few weeks ago. It was peaceful, sort of. She just... stopped. In her sleep. And when the nurse called, when she said it was over, I felt this thing. This… surge. Not grief, not really. Not then. Just this incredible, overwhelming sense of… relief. Like someone had finally lifted this impossible weight off my chest. I could breathe again. Actually breathe. And then the guilt hit, like a goddamn freight train. What kind of person feels that? What kind of husband? Is that normal? Does everyone feel a little bit like that, even just for a second, when it’s finally over? Or am I just completely broken? Everyone keeps saying, “Oh, you must be heartbroken.” And I nod, and I say, “Yes, it’s a terrible loss.” Because what else can I say? I can’t tell them the truth. That a part of me, a small, dark, shameful part, is actually singing. Is thrilled. That for the first time in over a decade, I can pick up a book and read it all the way through without being interrupted. That I can sleep through the night without listening for her. That I can eat a meal without cutting up someone else’s food, or coaxing them to swallow, or cleaning up a mess. It’s horrible, I know. I KNOW it’s horrible. But it’s also… liberating. And I feel so incredibly guilty for feeling that. Like I failed her even in death. I guess I just needed to say it. To someone. To no one. To the void. I’m just so tired. And now I’m free. And that makes me feel like the worst man alive. The absolute worst.