I dreamed it again, not for term life insurance, not for survivor benefits, not for divorce-less appearances, not for faultless ways to explain Absence to a daughter. I conceived an absolute, the end of ambivalence, of separate or combined, of empty or occupied, of hate or hurt. I dreamed it was cancer, car accident, gang violence. And now. Now I’ll love some unremarkable woman. I’ll think of him fleetingly, my memory gradually obliterating him and his power. The car door’s slam will cease to induce me, wistfully, to the window. I have only this nightmare to protect me from his visceral return.