Donato had two pillows that he liked. They fit him perfectly. At night, he stacked one atop  the other, lay back, and sank into the fluffy pile. Ahh, he grew sleepy thinking about them.  But nothing could ever be truly perfect.  

His wife, Gina, slept on the left half of their queen-sized bed. A multiplying pile of pillows  spread across her side, and he was unsure where they came from or how they grew in number.  Every few weeks, for the last six months, a new one appeared, and less often, by a schedule of  which he was unaware, to a place unknown, one vanished. They had been married for 17 years,  and their marital bed now had, well, at this point, an uncertain number of pillows.  

After dinner by himself watching the evening news, as Gina didn’t like to eat after 3 pm for  digestive reasons, Donato enjoyed retreating to their basement. There, he diligently practiced his acoustic guitar until his fingertips throbbed, yearning for the day he could captivate passersby on  a street corner. It was a little fantasy of his—to escape the ever-growing prospect that he might  spend his remaining days filling out loan-loss provision reports, or worse, be replaced by a  chatbot.  

When he returned to their bedroom, Gina was fast asleep, in a slightly larger mound than  the night before. Rather than ask the obvious questions, which were far too obvious to be asked  after the sun had gone down, Donato made certain the two pillows on his side were his, thus  ensuring himself a restful sleep.  

One evening, his pillows were missing.  

While Gina lay there, he searched her side of the bed, pawing through the blankets, sorting  through an array of bedding. One of his pillows lay on top of her head, like a veil covering her  face, but he couldn’t locate the other. Their dog, Gelsomina, observed Donato’s movements from  the floor.  

His search continued until the covers on Gina’s side rustled, and she pulled a pillow, warm  and mashed thin, from between her thighs and handed it to him.  

His chest tightened.  

“It helps my bad back,” she said.  

Plumping the formless mass into shape, he regarded his wife, her closed eyelids and black  hair splayed across the milky case. A lone gray strand curved toward him.  “Why do you go to bed so early?” he said, returning to his side of the bed.  Gina wiped the sleep from her eyes. “I don’t know, honey. I’m tired. Because my parents  are dying. I guess… I just want to sleep and not think about it.” 

She drew her leg under the jumble of bedding. “And it’s cold.”  

The following evening, Donato was downstairs practicing his pentatonic scales when  laughter erupted from their bedroom. Gina’s laugh — easy, full, and uninhibited. He set down his  guitar, trekked upstairs and stood next to her, as she lay in bed.  

“You’ve gotta see this,” she said.  

The laptop was stacked on a pillow he suspected was his.  

Gelsy propped her forelegs up on the side of the bed.  

In her flower-print pajamas, the screen light reflecting off her glasses, Gina had an open mouthed smile.  

“Look at this one,” she said. A pudgy golden-colored Labrador pup lay in bed next to a  woman, licking her nose with its small tongue.  

“Hmm,” he said.  

Gina grinned broadly.  

Gelsy growled at the screen.  

“Is that my pillow under your computer?”  

“Probably.”  

“I use the same two ones every night.”  

“Far out.”  

“No, they’re important to me.”  

“I’m sorry.”  

“Please stop taking my pillows.” He placed his hands together in mock prayer.  “Okay,” she said. 

Yet the next night, when he came to bed, his pillows were mixed in with her stack, and the  larceny continued the subsequent night, and the night that followed. Instead of arguing, each  night he quietly retrieved his particular headrests from her side, tugging one from between her  thighs, reclaiming the other from the foot of the bed, and he drifted to sleep.  

On the way home from work, raindrops streaked across the windows, and the stranger next  to him yanked the overhead cord. The bus screeched to a halt before continuing toward Donato’s  home. When “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac played in Donato’s earbuds, his mind wandered to  his wife and her parents, how she talked to them every day, and the sierra of pillows Gina  constructed each evening.  

In the basement, Donato strummed his guitar under the glow of a desk lamp. With a capo  on the third fret, he plucked the strings. A relaxing rhythm emerged, and he lost himself in the  cascading arpeggio.  

When he retired to bed, Donato found a disturbing scene in their bedroom. Gina was fast  asleep, a mess of bedding tossed over the bed and on the floor. Why were there pillows on top of  her body? It was as if she was having a pillow fight with herself, and lost.  

By the light of the reading lamp, Donato marked his pillows in permanent marker with a  thumb-sized green “T”, for Troisi, his last name, like when he was in the Army and he had to  stencil his name on all of his belongings.  

Gina was undeterred in her pillow thievery.  

Still, after her evening pillow parties, the green T’s made it easier to find his cherished pair:  the one with a moderate firmness that would barely keep his head off the mattress, and its plush companion, together which formed a smooth, feathery patch of repose. They were his old  pillows. Why couldn’t he keep them the way they were?  

After the twilight, a quiet darkness pervaded Donato’s basement, and a calming  nothingness beckoned him. He exhaled through his nose. But as he made his way to their  bedroom, he shook his head at the scavenger hunt that awaited him. There, he pleaded to her  prostrate, pillow-covered lump, “Gina, please listen to me.” He retrieved a pillow from under her  feet. “Are you listening?”  

From beneath the duvet, her head appeared: her olive skin and dark mascara lingering in  the corners of her eyes.  

“Stop. Taking. My. Pillows.”  

“I’m so sorry.”  

He searched her pale blue eyes, but it was as if she wasn’t there.  

In his arms, he gave it a gentle squeeze.  

Her eyes narrowed. “It’s just a pillow.”  

“Just a pillow?” His jaw tightened, and he pressed his lips together.  

She nestled into the blankets.  

“Why do you have twenty?” he asked  

“Mmm-hmm,” and she rolled over and disappeared under the covers.  

When the night fell again, he stepped into the bedroom to find his side of the bed was  bereft of pillows, while Gina had nestled herself into a bluff of softness. He balled his hands into  fists.  

That was it. 

He pounded the end of the mattress. 

Her face appeared. 

“Don’t take my goddamn pillows!”  

Her eyes widened.  

For an instant, it was as if he was watching himself, hovering at the foot of their bed,  yelling at his beautiful wife about his precious pillows. A smile slowly formed on his lips, and  then she smiled, too.  

They laughed.  

She said, “Okay. Sorry. I forgot.”  

Her smile faded, and she looked down.  

“How’s your mom?” he asked.  

“Uh, the same. I guess.”  

“Did she recognize you today?”  

A grimace flashed across her face. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it,” and she  disappeared into the squishy levee that had risen on her side of the bed.  

In the kitchen, Donato sat at the table and grabbed a piece of chocolate biscotti from the  plate which Gina had left out. Gelsy jumped up onto another chair, and he moved the plate of  cookies away from the dog. As he coaxed her down and pushed in the chair, an idea struck him.  

Upon waking the next morning, Donato climbed out of bed. With a gentle patting, he  smoothed out the divots in his pillows and carried them across the room. There, he placed  beloved softies atop the hamper. If Gina wanted to take them, she’d have to come and get them.  That night, she noted his new scheme.

“Hey, you moved your pillows.”  

“Yes.”  

“I can’t get them way over there,” she said, making a grabbing gesture with her hands.  “Exactly. That’s the point,” he said.  

She gave no response.  

He nodded at Gelsy, who was snoring on the hardwood next to the bed. “Remember when  she ate that bag of hazelnuts?”  

“Yeah?”  

“She almost died.”  

“Right.”  

“The next time I left the chair out, she ate the plate of chocolate cookies.” “Uh-huh.”  

Donato hung his shirt in the closet and placed his slacks in his dresser. “I could be mad at  Gelsy. I could scream at her, or spray her with water, which she hates.”  

Gina suppressed a smile.  

“But we both know she will climb back up on that chair the first chance she gets. It’s on me  at this point.” His voice was resolute.  

She laughed.  

He held up his index finger. “And so, yes, I put mine on the clothes basket, in the far corner  of the room, about fifteen feet from your daily pillow carnival.”  

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head.  

“It’s not your fault. You love pillows. I get it.” Donato moved his plush twins onto the bed. 

After flossing and brushing, Donato sat at the edge of the bed, applying lotion to his feet.  Gina jolted up, like Venus de Milo rising out of a swelling ocean of bedding. “You know what  makes me so goddamn mad?”  

“What?”  

“Dad won’t go see her in memory care.”  

“Yeah? No, I mean—I bet he’ll go, when he’s ready.”  

“That’s possible. It’s been six months, though.” She looked at Donato expectantly, as if he  knew something she didn’t.  

“I don’t know. I’m sorry,” he said.  

“You know what he said the other day? He said he felt lucky for the time they had together.  Like she’s already gone. Like she’s not in memory care, playing putt-putt golf, in the same  building, a ten-minute walk from his apartment.”  

As he climbed back into bed, Donato scratched his head, searching for the right words, but  nothing came to him.  

She grabbed his pillow, pressed her face into it, and took a deep breath. Before he could  object, she said, “Your smell relaxes me.”  

A few weeks later, he came home, ate dinner by himself, and played his guitar. When he  went upstairs, their bed was covered in unusual objects. There was a snake-shaped one, and  another with a silky silver case. A pillow the size of Gina spanned the bed, while a rectangular  piece of foam had a notch where one might lay her head.  

“What’s with all the new pillows?” he asked. “Where are the old ones?” 

From under the pile, she said, “I know.” There was something different about her voice, a  rare spark of enthusiasm returning.  

“Was Pillow World having a sale?” he asked.  

A pink silk sleep bonnet adorned her head. “They each serve a different purpose. This one  wraps around me like a warm hug. This pillow elevates my legs, and this one is anti-aging.”  He laughed, and then so did she.  

She said, “Yes, well, I’m not sure it works. It’s probably bullshit. But feel this. Isn’t it  soft?”  

He rubbed the satiny cover with his hand. “Yeah, that is pretty nice. And you do look  younger.”  

Her soft chuckle built into a full-throated laugh.  

Later that night, as he climbed into bed, pillows toppled to the floor from her planet of  fluff. He elbowed the snake pillow away from his ribs and nudged the wedge off his side onto  hers. “I think we may need a bigger bed,” he said loudly so she would hear him through the great  cushiony wall.  

He heard no response.  

“Or would you just buy more pillows?” he asked. “I mean, does it end? Can you have  enough? Do you see a point in your life where you finally say, ‘You know, I think I’m good on  pillows.’”  

There was a shift in the universe of bedding, through which her hand appeared. She passed  a soft, black object to him.  

“What’s this?” 

There was a guitar and a mic stand embroidered on the front.  

“For sitting. So you can busk.”  

He checked the firmness with a squeeze. “Oh, this is cool.”  

Her leg moved out from under the covers toward him.  

He placed a soft kiss on her nose and then her lips, and he rested back on his side of the  bed, nuzzling his head back and forth into a cushy bliss. “I like pillows too,” he said, and he put  his hand on her thigh.  

She sighed—a gentle murmur. “I’m sorry I took yours.” Her mouth moved to his neck, and  she inhaled deeply through her nose.  

He kissed her again, more firmly, on the mouth, and his hands moved to her breasts and  hips. After they made love, their pillows were scattered across the bed and twisted up in the  sheets and comforter. Some had fallen to the floor. Others, the most important two, stayed in  perfect shape under his head.