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My husband's ex-wife heard us doing it through her bedroom wall. We hadn't done it in three years. She knew exactly why. Last month, my mother-in-law had a stroke. Bill and I were having dinner when his sister called. She said their mom had collapsed and that we should go to the hospital as soon as possible. We moved fast. I went outside and waited for Bill in the car. He walked out with his phone to his ear. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. He hung up the phone right before opening the car door. "Sharon's got the guest room ready for us". “What? I’m not going to your ex-wife’s house.” “We might need to be at the hospital for a few days. I'm not driving all the way back home just because you don’t want to see her.” “We can stay at a hotel instead.” “All the hotels near the hospital are booked out for tonight. The only vacant hotel is over an hour’s drive from the hospital. Carol, my mom just had a stroke… Don’t make this harder than it already is” We live two hours from the hospital. Bill's ex-wife Sharon lives ten minutes away. I didn't say anything for the entire drive. I just looked out the window and wondered how on earth my husband felt comfortable enough to call his ex-wife and ask her to get the guest bedroom ready for us. Sharon is Bill’s ex-wife. He was married to her for six years before me. They divorced twenty years ago. They're civil. Christmas cards. Happy birthdays to the kids. She came to his mother's 80th birthday. She’s always been nice whenever we’ve met. We got to the hospital at 11pm. Bill’s mom was stable but she was asleep. The nurse told us to come back in the morning. Bill texted Sharon. We pulled into her driveway at midnight. She opened the door in a red, silk pajama set. It looked expensive. Her hair was down. She hugged Bill first. Long. Her hand on his back. Then she hugged me. She was wearing a vanilla perfume. It smelled like the perfume that Bill had gifted me for our anniversary a couple years ago. "I'm so glad his mom is okay. Come in. You guys must be exhausted." Her house was warm. Not just the temperature. Everything. Candles on the entryway table. Soft lighting. Music playing quietly from somewhere. A throw blanket draped over a leather chair that looked like someone had just been curled up in it reading. The house smelled like a woman who was expecting company even when she wasn't. I looked down at the jeans I'd put on twelve hours ago. And my oversized fleece with a coffee stain from the morning. My hair was pulled back. No makeup. No perfume. Bill was looking around. “Place looks great, Sharon.” “Oh stop. You know I just like things cozy.” Cozy. My house is "fine" Hers is "cozy" Sharon looked rested. Her skin was glowing. I’m 58 and Sharon is 60, but she looked a lot younger than me. Bill walked down the hallway like he'd been there before. Maybe he had. I didn't know. I didn't ask. "The guest room's all ready" Sharon said. She walked us down the hallway. There were family photos on the walls. Her kids. Her new husband — who was apparently traveling for work. I followed Bill down the hallway. Sharon stopped at the doorway. "Extra blankets in the closet if you need them. Bathroom's across the hall. Make yourselves at home." She smiled at Bill. “Just like old times. Minus the arguing.” They both laughed. I didn't. She closed the door. I looked at Bill. “She looks good.” “Carol.” “I'm just saying. She looks good. Silk robe at 9:30 on a Tuesday. Candles lit. Hair down. She looks like she was waiting for someone.” “She was watching TV.” “In a silk pajama set with perfume on.” “What do you want her to wear? A hazmat suit?” “I want her to wear something that doesn't make me feel like I showed up to a job interview in sweatpants.” Bill sat on the bed. “Carol, we’re here because it’s close to the hospital and we need a place to sleep. That's it. Can we just sleep?” “Fine.” “Fine.” I went to the bathroom to wash my face. Her guest bathroom had a linen hand towel, a candle that had been burned halfway down and fresh flowers in a small vase. My guest bathroom has a roll of toilet paper and a pump bottle of hand soap from Costco. I looked at myself in the mirror. Tired. Puffy. The bags under my eyes that never go away anymore because I haven't slept more than four hours straight in years. The fleece with the coffee stain. And down the hall, Sharon. In her red, silk pajama set. In her warm, candlelit house. Looking like she sleeps eight hours a night because she probably does. I hit menopause at 52. And I haven't slept well since. Hot flashes at 2am. You finally fall asleep and your body turns into a furnace. You throw the covers off. Twenty minutes later you're freezing. You pull them back up. An hour later you're drenched again. By 3am the comforter is on the floor and you're lying on a bare fitted sheet shivering, and you're so tired you could cry but your body just won't let you sleep. Then the alarm goes off and you start the day on four hours of broken sleep. I've been doing that for six years. And somewhere in those six years, I stopped trying. I stopped putting on makeup unless I had to. Stopped caring what I looked like. Stopped wanting to do anything that required energy I didn't have. Bill would ask if I wanted to go for a walk. I'd already be on the couch in my robe by 5:30. Eventually, he just stopped asking. The intimacy went away too. Not with a fight. Just a slow drift. We got into bed on our own sides. Stayed there. Some nights I'd lie there listening to him breathe and feel completely alone even though he was two feet away. We hadn't touched each other in three years. Not really. Not the way you're supposed to touch someone you've been married to for 30 years. He stopped complimenting me. Stopped looking at me. I'd walk past him in the kitchen and he wouldn't even look up. I became invisible. Standing in Sharon's bathroom, looking at her linen towels and her fresh flowers and her rested face and her silk pajama set, I realized something. My husband was more comfortable in his ex-wife's house than he was in ours. I came back to the bedroom. Bill was already under the covers, scrolling his phone. My body felt heavy. My legs were tired. I sat on the edge of the bed. I just sat there. My hand was resting on the comforter and I was running my fingers across it without realizing I was doing it. The way you'd pet a dog that walked up to you while you were thinking about something else. I looked down. Cream colored. Textured. Raised, tufted patterns across the whole surface. It hung past the edges of the mattress on every side. I got under the covers, I pulled it up to my chin. The weight of it settled over me and my whole body just... unclenched. Like every muscle had been braced for the last five years and suddenly didn't need to be. I was asleep in minutes. I don't know what time it was when I woke up. But it must have been early because it was dark. Still quiet. I was still covered. The comforter was still on me. Still draped the same way. I hadn't kicked it off. I hadn't woken up drenched. I hadn't fought with anything. And Bill was close. His body was closer to me than he'd been in years. He'd moved to the middle of the bed. The room was dark. And for the first time in six years I was lying in bed next to my husband and I wasn't thinking about how tired I was or how sweaty I was. I was just there. Comfortable. Warm. He reached over and put his hand on my waist. I didn't pull away. I'm not going to say anything else about that night. But I will say this. It had been three years. Three years since I'd felt comfortable enough in my own body to not flinch when my husband reached for me. Three years since lying in bed felt like anything other than a chore. Three years since I wanted to be close to him instead of just wanting to be left alone. We did it for the first time in three years. And it happened in his ex-wife's guest room. The next morning I woke up and looked at the clock. 9:45am. I'd slept nine hours. Bill was still asleep. His arm across me. I lay there for a long time. Running my fingers across the comforter. Listening to him breathe. I didn't want to get up. I didn't want to leave this bed. Bill woke up around 9. He looked at me, then looked at the clock. "What time is it?" "Almost 10." "I slept through the whole night." "So did I." He looked at the ceiling. Then he said something that almost made me cry. "I forgot what this felt like. That was one heck of a night." He smiled. I could tell he wasn't just talking about the good sleep. We got up around 10. Sharon had coffee ready. We sat in her kitchen. She looked at me. Then at Bill. Then back at me. She didn't say anything. But she knew. The walls in her house are thin. Bill's phone rang. His sister. We left to go to the hospital. In the car, Bill reached over and put his hand on my leg. Just rested it there. He hadn't done that in years. I put my hand on top of his. We spent the day at the hospital. His mom was better. She could talk normally and was joking with the nurses. The doctor told us that all of her test results were fine but said it would probably be best if we came back tomorrow since there were still a few more tests they needed to complete. That night we stayed at Sharon's again. Same thing. The weight of the comforter. The warmth. My body just unclenched when I pulled it up over me. I was asleep in minutes, just like the night before. And I slept through the entire night. When I woke up, Bill was next to me. He was close… just like the night before. The next morning Sharon made us breakfast. The three of us had breakfast together at her dining room table. I was counting the minutes until I could get back into that guest room and look at the bedding. Then Bill went outside to take a phone call. I told Sharon I'd be right back. I went into the guest room. Closed the door. Pulled back the comforter and felt the weight of it in my hands. The texture — soft, raised, tufted patterns everywhere. The way it draped almost to the floor on both sides. No wonder it never moved all night. I looked for a tag. Found one. Small company I'd never heard of. I took a photo of it. Then I did something I never thought I'd do. I went into Sharon's kitchen and asked her about the bedding. 'Sharon, this is going to sound like the strangest question. But what is on the guest bed?' She smiled. Like she'd been waiting for someone to ask. 'My mother had the same kind when I was growing up. Heavy. Textured. You pull it up and you just sink. I spent years looking for one and couldn't find it. Nobody makes bedding like that anymore. The big companies stopped decades ago because it was too expensive to produce.' She pointed toward the guest room. 'I found that small company about a year ago. They make it the old way. Small batches. 200 sets at a time. When they sell out you have to wait months for the next one.' 'That's the best I've slept in five years,' I said. She looked at me. 'Menopause?' 'Menopause.' 'Me too. I was the same way. Up every two hours. Hot flashes. Couldn't stay asleep. That comforter changed everything. The weight keeps it on you but it breathes. I don't wake up drenched anymore. I don't kick it off. It just stays.' Bill walked in. Looked at the two of us talking about bedding. Looked confused. Walked back out. We spoke for almost an hour. About the bedding. Kids. Life. "Carol, I'm happy for you both." I looked at her. "The walls are thin," she said. "I'm not trying to embarrass you. I'm just genuinely happy your marriage is thriving. When I was struggling with sleep I completely lost that side of me. I’m glad you’ve been able to maintain it.” “I haven’t been able to maintain it. This was the first time–” I paused mid sentence. I felt embarrassed telling her. We were both silent for a few seconds. “Carol… I lost that side of my marriage too. I lost it for years.” “It was all because of my sleep. It only changed after I fixed my sleep. Everything came back when I finally started sleeping properly again.” “Our sleep gets worse as we get older. But the worst part is that it gets worse slowly. Bad sleep always creeps up over time. It never just becomes bad overnight.” “So just like bad sleep, the side effects of bad sleep creep up slowly too. And because of how slow they creep up, you never actually realize that they’re just side effects of bad sleep. Instead, you just think it's a natural part of getting older. But it isn’t.” When she said that, I felt something click. It finally all made sense. Everything matched up with what had been happening to me. I didn’t know what to tell her. Bill came back inside. It was time for us to go back to the hospital and visit his mom. We said goodbye to Sharon and drove to the hospital. Bill was different in the car. Relaxed. He was talking more than usual. Telling me about work. He seemed happier. When we got to the hospital, the doctor told us that his mom had recovered well. We went to the ward to go check up on her. We thought she would be lying in bed. As soon as we opened the door, she got up and walked towards us with a big smile. “Bill, Carol!” She hugged both of us tightly. She looked just as energetic as before. As if nothing had happened. We stayed there until 12. Then headed home. Around 20 minutes into the drive home, Bill reached over and put his hand on my thigh again. Just rested it there. I put my hand on top of his. I didn't say anything because I didn't want the moment to end. We got home around 2pm. That entire day, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Sharon had told me after breakfast. The comforter. How it changed everything for her. That bad sleep is the real reason so many women lose that spicy side of their marriage. I went straight to my laptop. Opened the website that she told me about. It was a small site. Nothing flashy. Just photos of the comforter draped on beds — just tossed on, unmade, looking beautiful without trying. I found my king size. I went with the Oatmilk color. It’s like this creamy neutral that looked like it would go well with everything. There were only 4 left in stock. I thought about the lonely nights. The distance from Bill. The cold sheets between us every night. I thought about the last two nights in Sharon’s guest room. Nine hours of uninterrupted sleep. Bill’s hand on my waist. His body against mine. I missed being the little spoon. I thought about how we’d just been intimate for the first time in three years and how big of a deal that was to me. I ordered it before it went out of stock. King in Oatmilk. Then right before ordering, I decided to grab their Sage Green color too, since it was almost spring and that color just looked perfect for spring. I ordered both. I got lucky. My sister told me later the Oatmilk sold out hours after I ordered. If I'd waited even a day I would've had to wait months. My sister called later that day. I told her the whole story. My mother-in-law’s stroke. Sharon's house. The guest bed. Bill. She was quiet for a second. “Donna, are you telling me you and Bill... at his ex wife's house?” “Linda. Focus. I'm trying to tell you about the bedding.” “Oh I heard you. But I'm going to need you to go back to the part about —” “LINDA.” She laughed so hard she couldn't breathe. Then she got serious. “Send me the link.” I sent it. She called me back ten minutes later. “That Oatmilk color, it’s sold out in king. Are you kidding me?” “Sharon said they only make 200 at a time.” “You're on a first name basis with Sharon now?” “She has good taste in bedding, Linda.” “She had good taste in husbands too.” I hung up on her. The comforter arrived later that week. I threw it on our bed. Didn't smooth it. Didn't tuck it. Let it land however it wanted. It draped past the mattress on every side. It was the perfect length. Gorgeous oversized fit but not too long. The texture caught the afternoon sunlight from the bedroom window. It looked like it had been on our bed forever. Like it belonged there. Bill came home from the hardware store. He walked past the bedroom. Stopped. Backed up. 'You really liked her comforter that much?' 'Bill, it was the first time we've been intimate in five years. Yes. I really liked that comforter that much.' He turned red. Looked at the bed. Looked at me. 'Well. Good purchase then.' That night. Same thing as Sharon's guest room. The weight settling over us. The warmth without the heat. I fell asleep at 10. Woke up at 6:25. Comforter still on me. Still draped perfectly. Bill's arm tucked under my neck. Second night. Same. Third night. I had a hot flash at 2am. But this time I just pushed the comforter down to my waist and I was fine. The air cooled my arms but the weight was still on my legs. I fell back asleep in minutes. That had never happened before. A 2am hot flash used to mean I was up until morning. It’s hard to describe the feeling but my hot flash didn’t even feel uncomfortable this time. It was like I found a loophole. I still got the hot flash but I barely felt it. And I was still able to fall back asleep in minutes. By the end of the first week, something was different. I was sleeping. Deep sleep. Seven hours. Sometimes eight. The kind of sleep where you wake up and your body feels like it belongs to you again. I had energy. I cleaned out the kitchen pantry on a Wednesday for no reason. I put fresh flowers on the table. I started going for morning walks. I called friends I hadn't called in months. Bill noticed. He didn't say much. But he started coming on the morning walks. He started staying up later to watch movies with me instead of going to bed first. He started sitting closer on the couch. One morning I was making coffee and he walked into the kitchen and said “You look really good today.” Not the usual compliment on the way out the door that sounded like a chore. He actually stopped walking and turned to face me. He was looking at me. Admiring like he did in our 20s. I almost dropped the coffee pot. I didn't do anything different. I didn't lose weight. I didn't change my hair. I didn't buy new clothes. I just slept. And when I slept, the spark came back. The energy. The desire to do things. Whatever it is that leaves your face when you've been running on nothing for years — it came back. I told my friend Maureen about it at lunch. All of it. The flood. Sharon's house. The bedding. Bill. The sleeping. Everything. Three other women were at the table. Every single one of them was leaning in. 'I haven't slept through the night since I was 49,' one of them said. 'I've spent hundreds on bedding. Thousands maybe. Nothing works,' said another. 'My husband and I haven't...' She stopped. Looked at the table. 'It's been a while.' Every woman at that table was nodding. Maureen said “Send me the link right now.” I sent it. She looked at her phone. “Donna. It says sold out in king.” '”They only make 200 at a time. You have to wait for the next batch.” “How long?” “Couple months. And my sister said the price goes up after winter. The material costs keep rising because it takes four times the fabric of a regular comforter.” Every woman at that table pulled out her phone. “What's it called?” “What sizes do they have?” One of them got the last queen in the Oatmilk color. She held her phone up like she'd won something. The other three got on the waitlist. Maureen looked at me. “I can't believe your husband's ex wife is the reason I'm buying bedding right now.” I think about those two nights at Sharon's house a lot. My mother-in-law’s health scare.. The guest room. The weight of the comforter. Bill's hand on my waist in the dark. All those years I thought the problem was menopause. That my body was broken. That this is just what happens when you get older — you stop sleeping, you stop feeling like yourself, you stop being close to the person you love. I wasn't broken. I was just exhausted. And I was exhausted because I'd been fighting my bed every single night for five years. My mom slept like a rock until she was 80. She had that heavy, textured bedding her entire life. She never fought with her sheets. She never woke up with the comforter on the floor. She and my dad were holding hands on the couch well into their 70s. I spent five years lying under thin, flat, cold bedding that slid off every time I moved. Waking up drenched. Waking up freezing. Waking up alone on my side of the bed wondering where my marriage went. Now I throw the comforter on without thinking. It falls however it falls and it looks beautiful. I get in and the weight settles over me and I'm out in ten minutes. And last Sunday morning I woke up and Bill was already awake. Lying on his side. Looking at me. 'What?' I said. 'Nothing. You just look rested.' I smiled. Pulled the comforter up. Moved closer to him. We lay there for another hour. Not talking. Not checking our phones. Just two people who found their way back to the middle of the bed after years on opposite sides. My mom and dad used to do that. Sunday mornings. Coffee getting cold on the nightstand. Nowhere to be. I finally understand why. Your move.