The Widow’s Husband
Page 25
I can see my whole neighborhood. The lights are on at Irene’s—she and her husband are fans of Austin City Limits. I imagine them in their den eating dessert, (for some reason it’s bread pudding, or brown betty), while watching bluegrass bands, keeping time to a country banjo or guitar. I see the lights on in Frieda’s garage where Lyle is probably cleaning up from his fire. I see the lights at Mr. Purdy’s, at my own house, and I wish, fleetingly, that I’d brought a coat—at the last minute I’d thrown on Emmett’s embroidered shirt, and it’s not enough.
I spread the ground cloth I grabbed from the garage; first sit down, then lie back when my neck gets a crook in it. It’s dull work. Rarely is there a brief streak of light, then it appears in exactly the area I’m not looking at. I am restless and bored. I came here to connect with Emmett in some spiritual or philosophical way. He’s out there, riding a meteor through space as Slim Pickins had ridden an A-bomb in Dr. Strangelove. Emmett loved that movie.
But it’s cold work; the smell of damp earth floods my senses, along with the realization that death is enormous, never-ending. I quail before it; and also before the inescapable fact that I’ve moved beyond Emmett, as he’d moved beyond me.
Dying young is best, I tell myself briskly. Emmett is frozen in time, held forever at the permanent point of perfection I grant him in my memory. On the other hand, I will age and fade—if I’m lucky. I will grow to resemble Mr. Purdy, or his cousin, wrinkled, opinionated and crotchety. Like his cousin, I’ll sign up for a cruise; I’ll cavort in a silly party hat, in a dress that exposes my wrinkled bosom. Maybe I’ll flirt with some old codger at my dinner table. I’ll tell him soft sad stories about my long-dead husband, feed him lies about investments and interesting operations, and a treacherous son-in-law—Phil will be treacherous, I already see that. I see him as tricky, devious, a problem for Amy.
Maybe I’ll become a problem for Amy, too, become senile, or so tough and resilient that I develop a hide like a rhinoceros—I’m on my way now. I’ll become insensitive and desperate, tiresomely buoyant. The kind of woman Emmett had found distasteful, had avoided.
I tell myself that Emmett is well out of it with wars, pollution, overpopulation, destruction as far as the eye can see. I tell myself, and I believe it, that I don’t want Emmett back, or Amy, either.
Has love died for me?
Do you go on living a whole life after you admit that you are alone, and that love has died for you?
“Love is eternal.”
Emmett said that once. It was early on, during his gushy period, and he’d probably had something to drink. However, I thought he meant it. Now it strikes me as nonsense. Love isn’t eternal. It dies more often than it lives. Love, like fire and hate, needs fuel. I’m out of all three, and a relieved exhaustion overtakes me, sweeps through me like a clean breeze, clearing out my head. I experience a sort of wide-spreading emptiness, a peaceful acceptance, a restful apathy that verges on insensibility.
Enough! Enough! We’re all a puzzle to each other, no exceptions, and I’ve had enough doubletalk from you, Emmett, you and your poems. I don’t want anything from you. I want to drain my head and heart and not care about anybody. This business about the nature of love … nothing is more fragile, more ephemeral than love … nothing is more stubborn, obdurate, inopportune, contrary, painful …
I glance around, because I might even have said what I’m thinking out loud. But who would hear me? I’m absolutely alone.
I remember the time I came up here with Emmett and toddler Amy. We watched the City-sponsored fireworks bloom in the sky—bursts of chrysanthemums, pinwheels, fountains, firefalls, a real show. Amy squealed with delight, and we oohed and aahed at the man-made orchestrations of color. How ironic—that glitter-filled sky far out-performed this slow pale demonstration of the real thing.
That night I looked down at my house, as I’m doing now, and I’d felt, I’d known, that I had it all. Everything I needed for happiness, everything I’d ever wanted. Husband, home, family. All right there, not only in reach, but in my possession.
How lucky I’d been to have that feeling, even fleetingly … how many people ever experience such completeness, even for a short time? I have been blessed. I will quit whining about what everybody else puts up as a permanent condition. And I still have my house … I look down at it, to make sure, to comfort myself … and I see Bruce’s giant pickup trolling slowly up the block to the turnaround, then back again. It’s got to be Bruce, dear Bruce. Yes, I hear it, the marbles-in-a-coffee-can diesel rattle.
Maybe I should take him on. But by the time I’ve navigated down off this hill in the dark, in this crazy skirt that brambles pull at, in these boots that slip, he’ll have given up and gone on his way. He’s not going to wait around forever; he, too, has been in limbo, and now he’s waking up, coming out of it, as I am myself.
Still, just because the timing’s right doesn’t mean we’re destined for each other, Bruce and me.
But my life is falling forward, pulling me down off my hill. The past is over, even the present—it’s gone like that, the merest little sliver on which I can balance only for a nanosecond. Something impels me, like gravity—something not to be denied—and I gather up my ground cloth, shake it in a deliberate manner, fold it, then switch on the flashlight to begin picking my way along the scrubby trail. As I move down, back to my real life, or what has been my real life, I strike a bargain with myself: if he’s still there when I arrive at my own house, we’ll try to make a go of it. But if he’s gone, well, it wasn’t meant to be.
In any case, I’m the one who’ll inflict the damage this time, because I know that Bruce is not as tough as I am, as tough as I have grown. I will not be easy on him, I am capable of dealing with him harshly. Even while I think that, I know it’s a lie, a self-protective lie I tell myself to cover my vulnerability.
Nevertheless, the prospect of discovering who I am in the context of Bruce excites me, causes me to pick up my pace and I plunge along rather recklessly, skirting the mud around the spring, the brambles in the vacant lot. I can no longer see whether his truck cruises the street, because now houses loom in my view.
Please, let him be gone, let’s get it over with. Ah, isn’t that his truck I hear, the rattly diesel? No, it’s some machine tool Lyle is using in his garage. The wild beating of my own heart almost drowns out any noise, and I can’t hear clearly, I can’t think clearly. I feel as if my footsteps—I’m now at the bottom of the hill and approaching the path that winds through the vacant lot—are leaving pools of regret and pain, rather than a track of mud.
Because I see now that I was happy alone, I was coming along. Oh, sure, some days were up, some down, but that’s to be expected. I hear a rattle, I walk faster … isn’t that his truck? Isn’t he turning around, getting ready to head out? Yes, I’ve surely missed him, he’s given up.
I break into a run, I run, but am I in time, or has he given up? I wouldn’t blame him if he’s given up, because he’s been patient enough … and I am out of breath as I sprint into the street.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Sheila Evans
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2401-3
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