by Marie Force
While she gets busy in my kitchen making me food I won’t eat, I check my phone to see I missed four calls from her. My family is worried I might take my own life, even though I’ve promised them I wouldn’t do that to them. Not that the temptation isn’t tantalizing, because it is, but I love life too much to ever consider ending mine prematurely, even if it would mean I could be back with my love sooner rather than decades from now.
Decades—five, six, seven of them. That’s how long I’m probably going to have to live without Patrick. The thought of that is so overwhelming, I can’t dwell too much on it, or I won’t be able to go on.
I never gave much thought to the concept of time when I thought there was plenty of it. Now I know that’s not necessarily the case. Why would we think about such a thing when we’re in our late twenties or early thirties and just starting our lives? It’s not until disaster strikes that we understand that time is the most precious thing we have, and we don’t know it until it’s too late.
Time used to stretch out before me in an endless ribbon of possibility. Now it’s a vast wasteland of nothingness that’ll need to be filled with something until I run out of it.
I have no idea what that “something” will be.
2
Roni
The first thing I do most mornings is check my email. I have to force myself to do it because, as the executor of Patrick’s estate, such as it is, it’s my “job” to deal with the million forms and questions and inquiries that have to be handled after someone dies. I had no idea what a taxing job it is to basically erase someone’s existence, especially when the last thing in the world you want to do is erase that person.
I try not to look at my computer at night because I don’t sleep well if my brain is spinning with all the things that need to be done.
Sipping hot chocolate from one of Patrick’s DEA mugs, I open a message from an address I don’t recognize.
Hey, it’s Mia, writing to you from my husband’s email.
Oh God, our wedding videographer…
I’m SO SORRY for the delay in getting your video finished. I’m not sure if you heard I went into labor early and our son, Jack, ended up in the NICU for three months. As if that wasn’t enough, our house got hit by lightning and fried my laptop, taking all my email contacts with it. Ack! Just waiting for the locusts to arrive next. Anyway, at long last, here is the video of your magnificent wedding, truly one of the most beautiful I’ve ever attended. You and Patrick are the real deal, and I hope you’re enjoying your honeymoon. Please let me know if anything needs to be tweaked or changed. I make edits all the time, so that’s no problem. Thank you again for your patience.
Xo
Mia
Beneath Mia’s signature is a link to my wedding video.
I stare at that link the way I would a nuclear bomb if I happened to be standing close to one.
I can’t. I absolutely cannot look at that, or I’ll come undone.
Clicking to exit Mail, I get up to change out of pajamas into yoga pants and a sweater, jam my feet into Nikes and grab my coat, phone and keys as I rush out of the apartment like the place is on fire.
The freaking video.
I forgot about it, to be honest.
Mia told me it’d take a month or two for her to get it to me, and I didn’t give it a thought since. Funny how the things that were so important to me not that long ago, such as flowers and music and photographers and videographers, are now trivial bits of nonsense from a life I no longer recognize.
I walk for miles with no destination in mind. Anything and anywhere is better than being at home, especially now that the video bomb has landed in my in-box.
Shuddering, I try to block that piece of information from my mind. Maybe if I act like I never saw Mia’s email, I can pretend the video doesn’t exist. The last thing I need to see right now is my beautiful husband alive and well and beaming with happiness on the best day of our now-ruined lives.
I could tell my sisters to get rid of it, and they’d do it. They’d make it go away until I’m ready to deal with it. If I’m ever ready to deal with it. But I don’t call them. I just keep walking in a massive loop that takes me along the National Mall, past monuments and majestic federal office buildings bustling with workers looking forward to the weekend that stretches before me like a nightmare that refuses to end.
Oh shit! The doctor. My appointment is at ten thirty, so I hook a right toward Capitol Hill, heading for the coffee shop with the cinnamon bun that looked so good to me yesterday before Not-Patrick ordered an everything bagel and sent me running for my life. I do that a lot lately, run away when things are too much to handle.
Before I lost Patrick, I never ran from tough stuff.
Turns out I never really confronted truly tough stuff. I lost grandparents I loved dearly and grieved for them long after they were gone, but that isn’t the same as having your beautiful young husband cut down by a stray bullet a few months after your wedding.
Grief is grief, and it all sucks, but there’s a difference between the dull ache that comes with the passing of an older family member who lived a good long life and the razor-sharp agony of losing the most important person in your life far too soon.
I’m almost to the coffee shop when I see him—Not-Patrick.
Today he’s wearing navy blue dress pants and the same black wool coat. He’s on the phone and completely focused on his destination.
Even though I’ve got somewhere to be, I can’t stop myself from following him to the coffee shop and eavesdropping on his conversation.
“I left it with her backpack on the counter.” He sounds stressed. “I’m not sure where else it would be. I can come back home if need be.” After a pause, he says, “Thank you, Patrice. I appreciate it. Call me if the drop-off doesn’t go well. I can pop over before work.”
He ends the call with a deep sigh and rolls his shoulders as if the weight of the world is sitting on them.
I want to tell him that whatever is weighing him down isn’t the same as having your husband gunned down by someone who doesn’t even know him, but I can’t say that. Everyone has issues. Just because mine are bigger than some at the moment doesn’t make me special.
I’m ready this time for him to order the everything bagel, and it doesn’t lacerate me the way it did yesterday.
When he takes his skinny latte and turns away, I keep my eyes averted because I don’t want to see his face. The last thing I need is to confirm that he’s really Not-Patrick. Keeping the fantasy alive seems critical to keeping me alive. I order hot chocolate and the cinnamon bun, celebrating that today seems slightly better than yesterday was.
Woo-freaking-hoo. Define better. I didn’t burst into tears when the guy I’m stalking because he reminds me of Patrick ordered the same bagel my late husband liked. Someone get me a badge or a trophy. I’m beating the shit out of this grief game.
Until I remember that damn video is sitting in my in-box, waiting to open all the wounds that have begun to form the thinnest of scabs. I’m proud of those scabs. I’ve earned every one of them.
As I’m leaving the coffee shop, my mom calls. I take the call only because I don’t want her to worry. I hate how my family worries about me.
“Morning.”
“Oh, hi.” She sounds surprised that I actually answered. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m okay. Went out for a walk and stopped for a hot chocolate and cinnamon bun so I won’t be forced to drink an Ensure.”
“As long as you’re eating. That’s what matters. You remember the doctor, right?”
“Yep.”
My eldest sister, Penelope, got me in with her guy after she called mine and found out she’s on vacation for a month. I’m not thrilled about going to a male doctor for anything, but I tell myself a doctor is a doctor.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“That’s okay, Mom. I can handle it.”
“I just wish…”
“Wha
t?”
“That there was something any of us could do for you. It kills us to see you suffering this way.”
“I know, and I appreciate everything you guys have done for me. I’m getting through it one day at a time. I’ve been reading a lot about young widows online, and I see stories that give me reason to hope that it won’t always be this bad.”
“That’s good to know.”
My phone beeps with a call from my sister Rebecca. “Hey, Mom, Rebecca is calling. I’ll check in after the appointment, okay?”
“Sounds good. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” I press the button to take Rebecca’s call. “Hey.”
“How’s it going?”
I repeat this ritual with almost every member of my family just about every day. “I’m okay. How are you?” She recently gave birth to her second child, a girl named Delilah. Once upon a time, we talked about being moms together, but that’s another thing that isn’t going to happen now.
“My little princess was up all night, but other than that, all good here. You’ve got the doctor today, right?”
“Yes, and after you talk to me, text Pen to tell her I haven’t forgotten. Mom has already checked, too.”
“I will. So Jeff and I want to invite you to our friends’ place at Lake Moomaw. They’ve offered it to us for as long as we or you need it.”
I feel an instant wave of relief at the possibility of getting away from here for a while. “That sounds good.”
“Oh good! I so hoped you’d think so.”
It pains me how desperate they are to find a way to make me feel better. I hate that for them and for me. “When can we go?”
“Anytime we want.”
“You’ve got a new baby, Rebecca. You don’t need to go. I can go by myself.”
“I don’t want you there by yourself. Jeff and I talked about it, and he said he’ll drive us there and come out on the weekends.”
“You guys don’t have to do that. You need your husband. I’d be totally fine going by myself. I swear.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive, and I’d love the chance to get out of here for a bit.”
“I’ll talk to our friend Val, who owns the cabin, and let you know the details. Hit me up after the doctor.”
“Will do. Love you guys. Thanks for this.”
“We love you, too.”
When I arrive home, I eat half the cinnamon bun before showering and changing into jeans and a sweater for the appointment. Because the office is across town near Georgetown, and the Metro won’t get me close enough, I order an Uber and go outside to wait for it.
The cold December air is such a welcome relief from the warm, cozy vibe of the apartment I once loved so dearly. Everything in the place comes with a story, an outing, a weekend getaway, a memory indelibly tied to Patrick. It took two full years to get the apartment to the point where we considered it “finished,” which required champagne with Nat King Cole to celebrate. We had sex right on the living room floor, surrounded by the possessions we collected together.
A stray tear runs down my face that I sweep away with a gloved hand. With the appointment to contend with, I can’t lose my composure. Sometimes it takes hours to get it back. When the black Toyota Camry pulls up to the curb outside my building, it takes me a second to snap out of it and realize that’s my car.
The heated interior has me untying my coat, loosening my scarf and removing my gloves for the ride across the District.
Everything I do, even simple things like removing my scarf and gloves in the car, feels like it takes effort that I wouldn’t have noticed before I lost Patrick. Now it takes effort to breathe, to eat, to shower, even to sleep. Grief is such a weird journey that changes every single aspect of a life, from the simple to the complicated. It’s a weight I carry with me every minute of every day, even when I’m asleep and tortured by dreams about the life I used to take for granted.
That part is tough to acknowledge. It simply never occurred to me that I had anything to worry about. Patrick worked in law enforcement, but he had a desk job that kept him safe. We were young, healthy, growing in careers we both loved, making enough money to support a comfortable lifestyle while adding to our healthy savings account. What did I have to worry about?
I’m still thinking about how naïve I was when we pull up to the medical building. I thank the driver, head inside and take the elevator to the third floor. Pen gave me detailed directions that take me right to the door of the office I need. When I step inside, I’m relieved to find only one other woman in the waiting room.
Since I couldn’t get an appointment for more than a month with my primary care doctor or hers, she sent me the gynecologist she adores. “A doctor is a doctor,” she told me when I said I didn’t need a gyno. “You need a doctor, and he’s the best.”
After I check in, give my ID and the insurance provided by Patrick’s agency, I take a seat across the room from the other woman. A week after Patrick died, I received a call from someone in HR at the DEA to discuss my survivor benefits, which included another life insurance policy I didn’t know about and three years of health insurance for myself and any immediate family members.
“It’s just me,” I told the kind woman who made that dreadful call.
“Your husband was very well regarded here. We’re all so very sorry for your tragic loss.”
Those words are emblazoned upon my heart. Patrick worked so hard to build a sterling professional reputation. The tsunami of accolades about his brilliance at his job overwhelmed me after I lost him. Patrick was heavily recruited coming out of college by private and public-sector companies and agencies. He chose the DEA after interviewing with the FBI, CIA and ATF because he lost a close high school friend to an overdose and wanted to work for the agency confronting the nation’s drug crisis. I’m incredibly thankful now for the amazing benefits he had as a federal employee.
I try to flip through a magazine while I wait, but nothing holds my attention. That’s another thing that’s happened since I lost Patrick—I’ve developed intense ADD for the first time in my life. My brain refuses to focus on anything for more than a few seconds, which makes reading and watching TV, two of my favorite things to do, impossible.
According to what I’ve read from other widows online who’ve suffered the sudden loss of a spouse, the ADD recedes in time, and the ability to concentrate on something other than the tremendous loss returns. I really hope so, because I can’t imagine how I’ll ever work again in this condition.
Which reminds me, I need to contact Sam.
Ugh, my brain is a disaster area.
I’m called back to the exam room, and when they have me step on the scale, I’m shocked to weigh one hundred and eight pounds, which is down twenty pounds from where I was before Patrick died.
Damn it. That’s five pounds worse than I thought.
I’m given a gown and told to take everything off. The room is chilly, and I shiver while I wait for the doctor to come in. When he does, I want to smack my sister. Her Dr. Gordon is ridiculously young, hot and has a kind, sweet smile that immediately puts me at ease.
“Hey, Roni, so sorry to keep you waiting.”
Knowing my sister, she’s already given him the full lowdown on me to save me from having to go through it all.
He takes a seat on a stool and looks up at me on the exam table. “How’re you doing?”
“Oh, just dandy. Never been better.”
His small smile is full of compassion. “I’m so sorry about your husband. I read about what happened, and it’s such a tragedy.”
“Thank you.” I never know what to say when people express sympathy. What can be said except thank you?
“Penelope mentioned you’ve lost some weight recently.”
“Twenty pounds I didn’t have to lose. I just can’t seem to make myself eat. I have a lump in my throat that makes me feel like I’m going to vomit all the time.”
“Have you been
vomiting?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Just about every day.”
“Well, that’s not good. Did you ever have a problem with that before you lost your husband?”
“No, but I’ve always had to be mindful about keeping weight on, which I know makes me the envy of every other woman out there.”
Smiling, he says, “It does make you a bit of a unicorn, but it’s good that you’re aware of maintaining a healthy weight. When was your last physical?”
“More than two years ago.”
“In that case, I’d like to do a full exam, if that’s all right.”
“You’re the doctor.”
After he checks my ears and palpates my throat, he has me lie back on the table so he can do a breast exam. It says a lot about my state of mind that a young, hot guy is feeling my breasts, and I honestly couldn’t care less. The pelvic exam makes me a little more anxious, but then again, it always does.
“When was your last period?”
I have to think about that because I honestly don’t know. “I, ah…”
“More than a month?”
“Maybe two?”
“Are you usually regular?”
“As clockwork.” Patrick and I used to joke about how Flo from the Red Sea would show up with relentless attention to the calendar, and if only I could be as punctual as she was, he wouldn’t constantly be waiting for me.
The memory has me holding back tears that are always ready whenever I think of something having to do with Patrick and our life together.
After he takes off his gloves and washes his hands, the doctor helps me sit up and then returns to his stool. “I believe you may be pregnant, Roni.”
I’m sure I don’t hear him correctly. My husband is dead. How can I be pregnant?
“Your uterus is enlarged, and since you’ve been feeling sick and haven’t had a period in a while, I’d like to do a pregnancy test.”
I’m shaking my head before he says the word sick. “I can’t be.”