Quiet

It's quiet tonight.
The Man is at work.
The heathens and I have had kettle corn and watched a movie. I have listened to their chatter and laughter and cries of sibling induced outrage while still marveling at how quiet our home is tonight.
I have listened to soft baby snores and mumbled excerpts from childish dreams as I tuck blankets closer to my babies.
I have sat in out living room, the TV on, the house settling in with its night time noises, and still felt the quiet pressing down on me.
I have lain in my bed, hand pressed to his pillow, and waited to hear his familiar sleep sounds, some pleasant and comforting, some not so attractive, but his just the same.
I never realized how much noise The Man makes simply by being.
I've never known how much noise he made even when he was silent.
I wonder if he feels the same silence when I am gone, as though something essential has been removed from our little world.
After a year, it feels strange to truly be alone with my children and my thoughts. I keep expecting him to be there, to be in my space and annoying me by doing nothing more than being.
He excels at annoying me by merely breathing.
And now, with the house devoid of his heavy steps and not so soft snores, I find that I almost miss it.
Not him. It.
The noise. The presence. the extra something a house filled with a whole family engenders.
Maybe the cliche is right. Maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder.
Or maybe I'm just used to having someone to fight with taller than 4 feet.