His things are still under my bed.

I can’t look at them. I tried once, five months after I lost him. I thought I could conquer the memories while in the presence of another man — an inferior, safe man who inspired inferior, frustrated feelings. He was not a fearless leader like Michael. He could not proffer wise advice or tie a knot or fix my pipes, or even make my coffee.

Jim was the furthest from Michael that I could find. He was the opposite of passion and the opposite of distrust.

It was a mistake to drag out the dusty bag with Jim beside me. My breath hitched and my lungs shivered, as though I’d unearthed a sarcophagus, still pungent after all this time. I cried, and then cried harder from the shock of my tears until I was doubled over and sobbing.

I saw his shaving kit and his plastic cards that detailed the hundreds of knots a boy scout may need for survival. I desperately thumbed through the cards, wet tears sluicing off the plastic, as though searching for a knot we could have tied to save us — with his belt or his ropes or his colorful scarves, wrinkled and battered in the bag like cold linens left unfolded.

I shoved everything back into the bag, kicked it under my bed and asked Jim to never come back. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want anyone to touch me while I still reeked of him.

I’ve imagined Michael dead, with no trace except for the few things that sleep beneath me. They are the only reminders of him save for the occasional small things that haunt survivors: a cup that touched his lips, a phrase that he once said, a news article he would have sent me.

It is easier to imagine him dead than to accept this willing absence.

Were it not for seeing Michael recently — guiding his partner of 33 years through a crowd like he once guided me, with her coat slung over his arm, his hand on the small of her back — I could still believe that he didn’t choose to vanish. I could believe that death stole him, not just from me but from everyone else. If I hadn’t seen the two of them, I could still believe the campaign of lies he sold me — that he was never married, that the romance ended a decade ago, that they were only parents together.

If Michael had died, I could still believe that I was the only one.

I could still imagine us sitting in my bathroom while passing a joint and pondering the intricacies of parenthood. His hand would choose my knee; his lips would choose my neck; his hips would woo my hips.

If Michael had died, I’d have the dream that he would want me until I was 98. I could believe that time ran out for us and there wasn’t anything to be done to save him.

His death is my unique experience.

A foreshadowing of what’s to come in the next decades, I am the first to experience the anger. I am the first to question, “Why? Why now?” and bargain for one more day, one more hour.

I am the first to mourn him and, after unknowingly being second for the three years we were together, it offers no comfort.

I keep all of Michael’s things under my bed. They have stayed there during my remodel; they are there when I clean every Saturday. They hear my tears and my laughter, and watch my feet dancing on tiptoes. They witness my life the way he said he would.

If Michael were dead, I could allow myself the memory of him curling around me like a cat, claiming me with his legs over mine and his breath on my hair.

If he were dead, I would still remember him with pain, but less.