midnight panic

I woke up and immediately rolled over to check for Karl. I do this every time I wake up, regardless of the hour. His side of the bed was empty. I reached for my phone to check the time: 2 a.m. As I sat up, I tried to remember the last moments before I fell asleep. We were watching Futurama and he promised to shut down the iPad when he was done. He put my wrist guards on my wrists for me, as I was nearly asleep by the time I remembered that I need to sleep in them every night or I wake up with my hands painfully asleep.

As I walked to the living room, I tried to sort out whether or not Karl had fallen asleep with me. Sometimes, once I am asleep, he gets up and heads to the living room to spend the night watching war movies. The living room was empty, the tv off. I listened for signs that Karl was in the bathroom as I headed down the hallway opening doors to the library and our children's rooms. I located him in our daughter's bunk bed, snuggled in to the top bunk with our daughter. Our daughter has been having problems sleeping lately, waking us up in the middle of the night and falling fitfully back asleep in our room. Last night she even poked me until I woke up just to tell me she loved me. I don't know if our daughter came to our room and woke Karl up or if she found Karl on the couch before he made it to our room. It doesn't matter. What matters is I now know where Karl is and he is safe.

It is probably about once a week that I wake up alone and slightly panicked about where Karl is. Sometimes I find him awake, engulfed in some movie about the war he fought or one he didn't or maybe just Star Trek. Sometimes I find him asleep on the couch, lights on, tv on, clothes on. Sometimes, like tonight, I find him in one of our children's beds. Sometimes he comes back to bed with me and sometimes he stays up all night or stays where he is, peacefully asleep, as I take his glasses off and turn the lights off.

What am I afraid of in the middle of the night when Karl is gone? I am afraid he has disappeared. I am afraid I will not find him in the living room or our son's bed. I am afraid I will not be able to find him at all. I have heard wives talk about waking up in the middle of the night to find their husbands sleeping in the driveway or the car. I am not the only one searching for my husband at 2 a.m. As I look for him, I often think, maybe Karl wandered off out of some misguided notion that we are better off without him, which I know he sometimes thinks. Maybe he just gave up on society and has finally left to go live in the woods, like he so desperately wants to. Maybe he stepped outside to investigate a noise and wandered off, unable to remember where he is.

Over the years, as I have gotten used to finding Karl, my panic at waking in bed alone has lessened. I wonder how long until my panic increases as the possibility of him wandering off in the middle of the night increases. This is the strangest thing about brain degeneration: we have no idea when it is going to get worse or how bad it is going to get. I have no idea if Karl waking up and wandering off one night is a real possibility or just something my brain made up to panic me, but at least tonight, I know where he is.