The Widow’s Husband

by Sheila Evans

  Matching the rest of the office, the bathroom is hard-edged, all tile and stone, which allows sounds to echo off mirrors and ceramic surfaces. Also, like the rest of the place, it’s papered in black overlain with a gold design. There is scent, a potpourri of rose petals floating in a dish on the tile countertop. I turn on the gold-toned hot water tap—my hands are like ice—and stare into my own eyes, wondering aloud, “How much are they charging me to take a pee?”

  The long and short of it is that Emmett is gone, and he’s taken parts of me with him—my memories, my ability to cope, indeed, even to converse. He’s taken my emotions—I feel numb half the time—and now I learn he’s taken my money, too. But if he’d taken parts, he’d also left me with extra pieces. My too numerous and raw nerve endings thrum like power lines across the surface of my skin. My days have too many empty hours. My nights are long and restless, and when I do sleep, I dream of Emmett, young Emmett. Loving, cheerful, protective Emmett.

  Emmett and I paddling a canoe across a pond that’s pure and blue and still, mirror-like. He’s in front of me, and I watch his paddle slice through the water; I see that paddle more clearly than I’ve ever seen any paddle, limned along its edge with silver droplets. I study Emmett, I can feel, I can taste the warm silk of his slightly salty skin, the smooth skin of his back under his jaunty denim shirt. I want to twine my fingers through the fringe of blond curls showing under his Aussie-style hat. I stare at his belt loops, because if anything happens—the canoe is as fragile as a willow leaf and the water beneath us has now turned an eerie black—I’ll hold onto a belt loop and he’ll save me; the water can’t pull me down, if I have Emmett.

  We did once rent a canoe to explore a Canadian pond. But Emmett, showing off, displaying his prowess, paddled his side so vigorously, I hadn’t been able to counterbalance him and we’d progressed in erratic semi-circles. I’d smarted under his criticism, had been ashamed of my awkwardness. So the happiness of that preposterous dream is a lie.

  Again: we’re bicycling on a desert road. Infinity arches overhead so blue it makes me ache. It’s wintertime, and the desert air is thin and sharp, almost painful to breathe. The canoe dream was silent, but this one has sound effects: birds chitter in the crystal air, wind soughs in gray-green foliage, bike tires whir over asphalt.

  This ecstatic dream, well, it’s another lie, the result of something I dredged up from my old uncontrollable lizard brain. We did once bicycle around some new subdivisions in Desert Hot Springs, because Emmett’s parents wanted to move there. His mother had become arthritic from that cafeteria work; and back then, desert lots upon which to anchor a trailer were cheap, the ocean of land around Palm Springs inexhaustible. Emmett chose a route up a long steep incline, which his racy Peugeot had no trouble with. But I couldn’t make it on my clunky old Schwinn. He had to walk both bikes up the hill. He was accommodating, he was nice about it; but I resented his big-hearted condescension.

  Why did he have a racing bike when I made do with a sit-up-straight grandma variety? Well, because he did race it, occasionally; whereas I biked to the market, brought groceries home in a wire basket on the handlebars. Still, it wasn’t fair! That old balloon-tired Schwinn—the deck had been stacked against me.

  However—and here I stare at myself in the gold-framed mirror—what would I have had him do? Ride off and leave me? No, of course no; but I wanted him to falter, I wanted him to fail, just once. Just once I wanted him to be the one who couldn’t make it, couldn’t keep up, couldn’t maintain. I wanted him weak, vulnerable. Well, now, in a sense, he is. Does this make me happy? Yes, I admit that it does.

  I turn off the gold-toned faucet, dry my hands on a towel, a luxurious thick terrycloth, not a paper one. I resist the urge to wipe water spots out of the sink, because they’ll leave spots on that black porcelain. Such impracticality. Such richness. Even the doorknob is gold.

  Emmett had been the strong one, the enduring one, but I have survived him. Here I am, or there I am in the mirror, the proof. I am going to go on, and on, and on. I will become strong, I will grow, I will wise up. Just because I’ve lived my life on pause while he was alive doesn’t mean I’ll keep it there now that he’s dead.

  He is dead. At times I have to remind myself of that. He is gone, and the more I try to reach out to him, either awake or asleep, the farther he recedes. Sometimes I wonder if he’d ever been. One day I dug out photos to see how he looked. Had he parted his hair on the right or the left? How had his nose fit his face? The bridge of it, the bone, the flesh of his cheeks, his throat, his forehead … his teeth, had they been straight? On the small side, or large and square, like mine? Had he had a slight overbite? I can’t tell from my most recent pictures, those taken in Cabo San Lucas. That day in the warm Mexican sun, the day he bought sandals soled with tire tread and a serape for the couch, the same day he bought turquoise-trimmed silver feather earrings for Amy—and Maggie, too?—that day he’d been disinclined to smile. In the photos he looked washed out, grim, and old. When had Emmett gotten old? It came as a shock to me, looking at those pictures. Because, after all, I’m not old. Not yet.

  One more chore, one more lead to follow before closing the books on whatever Emmett had been up to before he died: the real estate listings. I get a new map—the area’s growing so fast, maps are outdated almost before they roll off the press—a large-scale city map big enough to navigate by. I spread it out, I pore over a great colorful offering-up of the town.

  The Interstate with its lining of motels and fast food outlets that advertise on billboards raised over the freeway like great square foreheads, a part of town I generally don’t frequent. Then Main Street, downtown, or what used to be downtown. It’s gradually dying, despite the efforts of various merchants, the ones stuck there, to resuscitate it. Then the malls, with their anchors of big box discount stores. Then houses, neighborhoods, parks, schools, all gradually becoming newer, more modern, as you travel into the foothills.

  The farther into what had been the hinterland, areas once given over to orchards and vineyards, or pastures studded with oaks and cattle, the ritzier the developments, the more poetic the names. Mountain Oaks, a settlement bragging about hiking and biking trails. Broadmoor Terrace with tennis courts, saunas, and spas. Fairhaven Greens, a protective ring of houses around a golf course. Singing Waters, two-story condos hunched over a man-made lake, like animals at a waterhole. I know their general appearances, have driven by them, or seen their ads. I know how they’ll be. White stucco boxes with red tile roofs, an army of these units marching along behind barricading serpentine slump stone walls. Landscaping: islands of Lily of the Nile, pampas grass, oleanders in churning seas of red bark; a gated decorative entryway, the tract’s name on an overhead arch, written in wrought iron script as stylized, as delicate, as precise as Arabic, or calligraphy.

  Apparently Emmett had looked at such developments. One in particular, Singing Waters, had interested him: on his printout, three addresses are check-marked, and one is circled. I take aim at it, I will follow his trail through Singing Waters, I will see what he looked at.

  Saturday. People will be home on Saturday. Maggie Quinn, if she lives there, will be home. Her Miata, if she has one, will perhaps be visible. At any rate, it’s a goal, something to aim at.

  Saturday is recycling day in my part of town. I put out the newspapers—most of them unread since Emmett’s death—but don’t anchor them properly. A sudden gust out of the west sends sheets of newsprint blowing into the neighbors’ yards. I charge out to corral papers. An unpromising start to the day. Then old Mr. Purdy appears to help, flapping out of his house next door in a bathrobe over a flannel shirt and faded jeans. Cross, mossy old Mr. Purdy.

  “This recycling business, it’s a bunch of hooey,” he says, puffing from a sprint chasing down a brightly colored Sunday supplement section. “I read somewhere the garbage guys just throw it all out anyway. Like during the war, the Big One, there was all this hooey about saving bacon grease, tin cans and fo
il, newspapers. Ha! Useless. Just giving folks something to do, make them feel useful. Didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Well, there, that’s about it.”

  I thank him breathlessly. He goes on, “You’re out early, all dressed up. Like maybe this is not the day to ask you for coffee … I’ve been thinking I’d have you in for a cuppa joe.”

  I mumble an excuse, a polite refusal, something, while turning away. Coffee with Mr. Purdy! I’m shocked, but also pleased. My day has gotten a lift; I am wrong about being off to a bad start. This connection with Mr. Purdy is auspicious; things are going my way. Backing out the Bronco, my maps, real estate printouts next to me, I feel … almost normal, special, even, in my dark pantsuit, white silk shirt, medium heels. Mr. Purdy thinks I’m normal. He saw me as a whole person, making an effort and succeeding, living a life with shape and hope, like everyone else’s life. Maybe I can pull this off after all.

  I thread across town, then up into the hills. I find Singing Waters, park in a VISITOR space, lock up, and walk around feeling as conspicuous as a cat burglar caught in broad daylight, as welcome as a Watchtower peddler. People will suspect my motives. The proper people who belong here will ask to see my passport, my documentation. I expect to have to defend my presence.

  I also expected some activity, people doing lawn work, washing cars or windows, or sweeping walks. But there’s no life anywhere. Aha! I should have known. This is where other people do your work for you, little brown men in khaki work clothes and pith helmets; little brown women in uniforms, both men and women pinned with nametags, proof of their legitimacy.

  Many cars in the assigned covered parking, but no red Miata. People are home, but not out and about because there’s no reason to be out and about. Exterior chores involving leaf blowers, lawn mowers, weed eaters, even interior work with vacuum cleaners and dust mops, will be done during weekdays. The residents here don’t want to put up with noise or inconvenience. Wouldn’t this lack of activity make living here a pointless and sterile existence? What would Emmett have found to occupy him? No repairs to make, no weeds to eat, no cherry tomatoes to plant. He would have been lost.

  But there was that literature about Ireland. He hadn’t expected to be home.

  With difficulty—the place is a maze—I find the manager’s office, go in, introduce myself. She’s a woman my age, and she believes—or doesn’t care enough to question—my story that the real estate agent sent me to look at a unit. Two of the three listings on Emmett’s printout have been sold, but one is still available. Sure, the woman says, she can show it to me. No problem.

  Jingling keys, she leads me down an aggregate concrete walkway through sod so new the seams are still visible. Here and there, groupings of saplings with trunks the diameter of pencils lean against their stakes. Sycamores, the tree currently in vogue. Their few pale green leaves are as pointed as a spread hand, and maple-like. London Plane trees, Emmett would have corrected. Emmett knew trees. Not just ordinary trees like maple or eucalyptus, but exotics not encountered in our city environment. “Oh, there’s a bristle cone pine,” he’d say, or “I didn’t know Western Hemlock grew so far south.” “A Pacific Yew, by golly, at this elevation.” Emmett, the tree expert.

  Emmett, Emmett, Emmett! Always Emmett! Emmett, the lawn man, the fixer, the complete house-husband. He’d taken care of the house and the car, or was supposed to have done so. He was the joiner, the joker, the canoe expert, the handsome one, the strong one. I am sick of him! Why had I let him dominate my life? Why am I not an expert on trees, weed eaters, investment portfolios? It’s intolerable! I make a solemn vow to get better.

  Singing Waters is built on gently rolling hills, and embankments are planted with English ivy, African daisies, verbena Peruviana. I tell the woman how much I admire the landscaping, so artistic, well planned. “Yard work,” I say, “I’m no good at it. I’m doing it now because my husband passed away. He’s been gone almost four months.”

  “Really. Must be hard.”

  “We had an embankment steeper than that, but Emmett, that was my husband, Emmett decided he didn’t like it. So he leveled it, cut down the angle. One wheelbarrow full of dirt at a time. Took him weeks. Oh, he was a worker. Then to pack the earth after he got the slope the way he wanted it, he drove the car back and forth across it. This was the front yard next to the street.”

  “I’ll be darned.”

  “Yes, he was clever. That man could do anything, build the Great Wall of China, the Transcontinental Railroad, the Panama Canal—if he had enough time.”

  “Why would he want to change the angle of the embankment?”

  “He didn’t like such a drop-off. Too hard to get anything to grow because we couldn’t water it. It was hard pan, the water just ran off.” Then I remember the rest of the story. Emmett ruptured the water main with the car; the broken line sent up a geyser thirty feet high. The City had to turn the water off; the whole neighborhood had been without water. A five-man work crew labored all afternoon to fix the main, on a Saturday. The neighbors, waiting to wash cars or clothes or the dishes, had been quite annoyed, especially Mr. Purdy. Then too, we’d been fined for the work crew and for the water we’d wasted. No point in telling this woman that; no point in telling her anything, really. But in spite of myself, I go on, “He planted the new flatter area with lantana, but it died. Then he went to low-growing cypresses, but it encouraged slugs. The neighbors said we were a slug farm.” Abruptly I stop talking. This woman will think I’m crazy, or hard to get along with, an unwelcome addition to their roster. I remind myself that I’m not really planning to live here.

  “Here’s Number 17, a two-bedroom, two-bath model, about fifteen hundred square feet, appliances, drapes, carpets—all top of the line. European style cabinets. Nice view of the lake.” We enter the condo by a side door, the woman turning on lights as we pass down a hall. “See? Here’s what I mean.” In the living room, she opens a drape, and there lies the man-made pond. A few Canada geese float desultorily in the distance; a few small boats, the kind you pedal, are drawn up on the grass in front of neighboring units. The wind that blew my recycling into the neighbors’ yards is still at it, and the air is full of dust from nearby vineyards being cultivated, vineyards whose days are numbered. The choppy lake water reflects a dull blue-gray color, shadowed here and there with swaths of muddy brown. “The other two units on your printout were cheaper because they’re not lake-front. That’s them, over there.” She points off to the next section. “Otherwise, these are all about the same.”

  “Oh, my …” I say, gazing around me.

  “Yes, nice, isn’t it? This townhouse’ll go fast. The last one. If you want it, you should hurry.”

  I stare at the water, trying to imagine Emmett pedaling one of those silly little boats, and I can’t. Nor can I see him rowing a canoe across this mud hole. Emmett had favored excursions with obstacles to overcome; he’d needed a steep hill to climb, a forty-knot wind in the Bay knocking down the River Rat, the sailboat he crewed on. He’d demanded exertion, difficulty, adventure. At least that’s what he’d demanded when he’d been with me. But maybe with another woman, one who’d supply a challenge from another quarter—

  I sigh, breathe in the newness emanating from carpet, drapes, paint. A heady aroma, indicating expense, luxury, ease. A fragrance such as the one you get in a new car, such as Maggie probably experiences with her Miata. The gray-blue of the carpet seems to extend into the lake, as if there’s no separation between rug and water. A nice expanse, if one doesn’t look too closely.

  I like the décor, sleek and modern, no frills, no trim pieces, curlicues. Gray-blue starkness. But would Emmett have liked it? Would his fusty old La-Z-Boy fit here? His massive roll-top desk? His large-screen TV? No, they’re too big and the wrong style. But he’d probably planned to leave his middle-aged overstuffed shabby furniture with me, his middle-aged over-stuffed shabby wife. He’d begin again with everything new, everything sleek and toned. Now, when it’s too late, I realize tha
t Emmett, after his first attack and his brush with death, had been intent on a new life. He’d wanted all of life he could get. He’d wanted Youth. He’d wanted Maggie Quinn. At least I think now that that was what he wanted.

  Upon which wall would he have displayed his trophy/clipping/testimonial collection? I see no suitable expanse. The design of the unit follows the modern plan of openness, leaving few interior walls for pictures or displays. There’s no place for Emmett’s real person, or the person I’d thought him to be. Then again, with Maggie Quinn by his side, he would have had no need for clippings, testimonials, thank-yous from the local high school. Maggie Quinn would have been trophy enough.

  But would Maggie have been enough?

  Here I go again, I think, exasperated. I am building a case against Emmett on pure speculation. On the basis of a printout with checkmarks that possibly are Emmett’s, possibly are not. I have wasted my time, and the manager’s. Emmett said I was like the man who got on a horse and rode off in all directions. He was right, as usual.

  Briskly, as if to put distance between myself and my speculation, I turn away and step into the kitchen. The manager follows me, talking of flush mounted soffits, slate countertops, wall-hung cabinets with under-counter lighting, lazy susans, easy roll-out trays for pots, pans, roasters. She points out that no kitchen pulls and handles mar the purity of line, the classic simplicity of style, of function. Yes, I think, this is the kitchen I had in mind when Emmett remodeled. But Emmett wanted traditional styling, such as oak called for. He wanted trim pieces and knickknack shelves and turned dowelings. Gingerbread.

  “Yes, very nice,” I murmur. “Tell me, are there garages?” I’m looking out a non-lake window. “Or does everyone have to make do with covered parking? You see, I have a valuable car, oh, not the one I’m driving today, but a sports car. Well, it was my husband’s, a Miata, but I’ll want to keep it protected.”

  The woman frowns slightly. “Miata … I don’t know what that is. But the parking for this unit is right there, facing east. Most of our worst weather comes from the west.”