Till Death Did Us Part

In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve. Not that Adam and Eve—their story was far more complicated.

"What's a relationship without sex? We're a couple, for God's sake!" Adam bellowed, his voice echoing through the house as he grabbed his coat and stormed out, slamming the door so hard the frame rattled.

Eve stood there, stunned. She opened her mouth to respond, but it was too late. He was gone. She sighed deeply and muttered, "Well, at least he didn’t throw another plate this time."

Hours ticked by. Eve wandered the house in a daze, alternating between fuming at Adam’s temper and feeling guilty for snapping at him earlier. The doorbell interrupted her spiral of self-pity. She rushed to answer, only to find the mail delivery guy yet again, holding out another stack of bills and bank statements.

"Great," she grumbled, snatching the envelopes. "Because nothing says ‘love’ like overdraft notices."

She tossed the papers onto the counter and leaned against it, rubbing her temples. Just as she contemplated whether she should call Adam or let him stew, the phone rang. Eve lunged for it, her heart racing.

"Mrs. Sandler, this is Detective Harper. Your husband’s been in an accident."

The words hit her like a punch to the gut. She froze, the receiver trembling in her hand. The detective’s voice continued, but she didn’t hear a word.

Before she knew it, she was running—barefoot, across soggy lawns and uneven sidewalks. By the time she reached the hospital, her feet were muddy, and her breath came in ragged gasps.

"Where’s my husband?" she demanded at the reception desk.

The nurse, who had clearly seen her share of frantic spouses, looked up with practiced calm. "Adam sustained a significant cranial injury. We’ve sedated him to allow the medication to take effect. You’ll need to wait a few hours before you can see him."

Eve blinked, her brain struggling to process the information. Finally, she muttered under her breath, "At least his penis isn’t broken. He better remember we haven’t had sex when he wakes up."

The nurse’s lips twitched, her professionalism slipping for just a moment. "Ma’am, I can hear you."

Eve threw up her hands. "Oh, come on! You’re a nurse! Don’t act like you’re above this. You probably get—what’s the polite way to say this?—analytical attention on a regular basis."

The nurse’s cheeks reddened. "I’ll give you some privacy," she said, disappearing down the hall.

Eve slumped into a chair in the waiting room, her mind churning. She stared at the linoleum floor, tracing the scuffed patterns with her eyes. How did we get here? she wondered.

Adam wasn’t perfect, but neither was she. Their arguments always felt like tiny fires that somehow became infernos. Now, sitting in the cold hospital, she wasn’t sure if their issues mattered anymore. What if he didn’t wake up? What if her last words to him were yelled through clenched teeth?

She pressed her hands to her face, tears welling up. “God, give me one more chance to fix this. To fix us.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, though, another thought lingered. When Adam woke up—and she refused to believe otherwise—he was going to have to answer one very important question: Seriously, though, why don’t we have sex anymore?

Three weeks later, Adam was discharged from the hospital. The doctor gave Eve a list of instructions that seemed longer than a grocery receipt: medications, physical therapy, dietary restrictions, and—most importantly—plenty of rest. Adam, being Adam, rolled his eyes at most of it.

"I don’t need all this babying, Eve," he grumbled as she helped him into the car.

"Sure you don’t," she shot back, strapping him in like a toddler. "You’ve got a titanium plate in your skull now, Adam. Maybe act a little grateful you’re not a decorative urn on my mantelpiece."

At home, Eve threw herself into taking care of Adam. She cooked, cleaned, and managed his medications, though Adam’s stubbornness tested her patience daily.

"Why are you so obsessed with feeding me soup?" he asked one afternoon, eyeing the bowl she set in front of him.

"Because you can’t chew properly with half your teeth missing," she replied flatly, plopping into the chair opposite him. "Do you want to choke, or should I call the nurse and ask her to come save you again?"

He muttered something unintelligible but picked up the spoon.

Despite their bickering, Eve’s care for Adam was tireless. She spent her nights on the couch, ready to jump up at the slightest sound. Her days were spent juggling doctor appointments, prescriptions, and cleaning up after Adam’s increasingly short temper. But deep down, she thought they were making progress. Maybe we can fix more than his head, she dared to hope.

But fate had other plans.

One evening, Adam complained of a headache—a small one, he insisted. Eve fetched his medication, but within an hour, he collapsed in the living room. The ambulance arrived too late. The doctors said it was a brain hemorrhage, a complication from his injury.

Adam was gone.

The funeral was tense. Eve sat alone in the front row, clutching a damp tissue, as Adam’s family whispered behind her. She didn’t have to hear the words to know what they were saying.

"She pushed him too hard."

"Why didn’t she take him back to the hospital sooner?"

"You know they were always fighting. Maybe she stressed him to death."

The whispers turned into pointed accusations in the days that followed. Adam’s older brother, Greg, showed up at Eve’s doorstep uninvited.

"We need to talk," he said, not waiting for her to invite him in.

Eve crossed her arms. "About what, Greg?"

"About what you did to Adam."

Her jaw tightened. "I didn’t do anything to Adam. I took care of him."

"Really?" Greg sneered. "Because last I checked, he died under your roof. And now you want us to believe you deserve to keep his house, his savings, everything?"

Eve’s eyes narrowed. "This is my house, Greg. Adam and I built this life together."

"Don’t kid yourself," Greg snapped. "Adam’s blood paid for this place, and his blood’s on your hands."

Eve slammed the door in his face, but the battle had only begun. Over the next few weeks, Adam’s family lawyered up, contesting the will and claiming Eve had manipulated Adam into cutting them out.

Eve, exhausted and grieving, fought back with every ounce of strength she had left. "I loved Adam," she told her lawyer. "This house is the only piece of him I have left."

Court hearings dragged on, dredging up memories Eve wished she could forget. Adam’s siblings painted her as a cold, vindictive woman who had driven him to his grave. Eve, meanwhile, stood firm, refusing to let them rewrite history.

One day, as she sat in the empty house, a box of Adam’s belongings on her lap, Eve found herself laughing through her tears. The irony wasn’t lost on her: Adam always hated drama, and now he’d left her in the middle of a soap opera.

She pulled out a photograph from the box—one of them smiling on their wedding day. "You really couldn’t make this easy for me, could you, Adam?" she said aloud. "Even from the grave, you’re making me fight."

But as the days turned into months, Eve realized something. The fight wasn’t just about the house or the money. It was about proving to herself—and to Adam, wherever he was—that their life together had meant something. That she wasn’t just the woman Adam had fought with, but the woman who had loved him fiercely until the very end.

The court battle dragged on for months. Adam’s siblings presented emails and texts from years ago as evidence of his supposed unhappiness. Eve’s lawyer countered with medical records showing she had followed all the doctors’ orders, receipts for the countless medications and equipment she had bought for Adam’s care, and even testimonies from neighbors who had witnessed her devotion.

Meanwhile, Eve’s personal life was unraveling. The house felt emptier by the day, as if Adam’s absence had drained it of warmth. She found herself talking to his photo on the mantle, venting her frustrations.

"Do you hear what they’re saying about me?" she asked one night, wine glass in hand. "I mean, you complained about me, sure. But Greg? He hated your guts! Remember that time he called you a ‘spineless doormat’ because you wouldn’t loan him money for that terrible business idea? And now he wants your house?" She let out a bitter laugh. "Unbelievable."

The turning point came during the testimony of Dr. Patel, the neurologist who had treated Adam after the accident.

"Adam’s death was tragic," Dr. Patel said, addressing the court. "But it was unavoidable. The hemorrhage was a rare complication that no amount of care could have predicted or prevented. In my professional opinion, Mrs. Sandler did everything right. Her devotion to his recovery was evident every time I saw them."

This testimony, combined with Eve’s calm persistence and Sarah’s airtight defense, began to sway the court. Greg and his sisters, sensing they were losing, turned desperate. At one point, Greg even accused Eve of deliberately keeping Adam’s family away from him in his final days.

Eve stood up. "You want to talk about who kept who away?" she said, her voice trembling with anger. "You visited once in three weeks, Greg. Once. And you stayed for ten minutes because you couldn’t deal with seeing your brother in pain. Don’t you dare accuse me of pushing you out when you couldn’t even bother to show up."

The courtroom fell silent. Greg shrank into his seat, his bravado gone.

In the end, the judge ruled in Eve’s favor. The house, the savings, and everything Adam had left behind would remain hers. As the gavel came down, Eve felt a wave of relief, followed by a surge of exhaustion. The fight was over, but the scars it left behind would linger.

Adam’s siblings left the courtroom without a word. Eve watched them go, a mix of anger and pity in her heart. They had lost more than a legal battle—they had lost any chance of rebuilding the fragile connections Adam had tried to maintain.

Back at home, Eve stood in the living room, surrounded by Adam’s belongings. She picked up the wedding photo again, tracing his face with her finger.

"You’d hate how messy this got," she said softly. "But I fought for us, Adam. For what we built. And I’ll keep fighting—for you, for me, for this house that still feels like you’re here."

She placed the photo back on the mantle, lit a candle, and sat down to write. For the first time in months, words flowed easily—a letter to Adam, a story of love, grief, and resilience. A story that was far from over.