This Angel on My Chest

by Pietrzyk, Leslie

  3.

  You are at a therapist’s office. This is not your therapist, not yet, but this is the person who has been recommended by a friend. The walls of the office are gray, the color of mist cloaking a mid-Atlantic beach town in late January, and the upholstery is that same gray. The furniture is comfortable but also business-like, clearly office furniture and not furniture that would be in a house. You are seated exactly in the center of the three-cushion sofa. There is not a coffee table in front of you the way there would be in a house. This is not a house. It is a therapist’s office. You have never been to a therapist. Everyone has been telling you to go. Your friend made the appointment. Your friend drove you here. Your friend is at the Starbucks on the corner, waiting for you, drinking an eggnog latte and flipping pages of the free City Paper that was left at the table where she is seated. You wish you were seated at that table. You wish you liked eggnog lattes. You wish you were good at asking for help and accepting favors and spilling your guts and finding closure and making progress and crying in front of strangers and wringing your hands and looking on the bright side and keeping a gratitude journal. The therapist, a woman, could be fifty years old or she could be sixty-five. She sits in a gray leather chair directly across from you, about five feet away. Her black shoes are thick-soled, sturdy, very functional, Velcro instead of laces or buckles. You would hate yourself if you ever wore those shoes unless it was to complete a Frankenstein costume on Halloween. You can’t stop staring at her shoes, at her ugly, ugly shoes. You are the shallowest person on all of planet Earth.

  The therapist says, “Why don’t you tell me what brings you here today?” You say:

  A. “My friend in her Volvo, haha.”

  B. Nothing, but you burst into messy, sloppy, choking sobs.

  C. “I have insurance, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  D. “My husband died of a brain aneurysm six months ago when he was only forty-two.” Speak calmly, speak coldly. Speak as if you don’t care if she hears you or not. Speak as though this is a test you are giving her and she is not passing. Speak as if you are a difficult person to deal with, as if you are a bitch.

  The correct answer is D. Choose D. She will nod and scribble on a legal pad and she’ll say, “Go on,” and you will say, “This isn’t going to work.” Stare uncomfortably at her shoes, and she will explain why and how it will all work, and in the end, you smile and shake her hand and say, “This has been wonderful, thank you. I’ll see you next week,” and you will go find your friend at Starbucks who has ripped out an article about an art gallery opening she wants to take you to, and next week, you will call the therapist’s voicemail to say you have the flu and the week after that you’ll tell the voicemail that you’re heading out of town unexpectedly and the next week you’ll inform the voicemail that you have opera tickets and then one time, the next week or another week, you will call and tell the voicemail that you’re sorry, that therapy just isn’t right for you though you know that it can do many wonderful things for many people. You will say, “Good luck,” into the voicemail and wonder what you mean.

  4.

  You are at your friend’s wedding shower. She is one of your friends from college who you don’t see very often and you have driven two hours to another city to attend this wedding shower. You don’t really want to be here, but you had nowhere else to be and you didn’t want to be alone. You drove twenty miles over the speed limit the whole way, but there were no cops to pull you over and give you a warning, to tell you to slow down. You have bought your friend a gift off a registry, but you worry that the clerk at the store in the mall looked up the wrong registry because you can’t imagine what your friend wants with a Moroccan tagine but it comes in an impressively big box that the clerk gift-wrapped for you. Your box is the biggest one on the table. The other boxes are flat and look as though they contain towels and sheets. Your friend is also three months pregnant—she has only started telling people, so this news surprises you when she greets you at the door, announcing in a loud voice: “I’m so glad you made it! Guess what? I’m pregnant!” There is lemonade at the wedding shower, but no wine. You find out that it’s a shower for couples, and the men gather in the cold backyard, huddled over a barbecue smoker, watching football on a small TV set that’s hooked up through utility extension cords snaking through the house and onto the patio. The favored team is losing by a lot. The men have a cooler full of beer in their part of the shower, but no one says, “Go get some beer if you want,” and no one in the women’s part of the shower is drinking beer. You’re wearing the half-price skirt with the tacking thread finally removed, and the other women are wearing jeans. You’re sitting on the center cushion in a three-seat couch with two women you don’t know on either side of you. You don’t know anyone. The people you know who should be here all called with last-minute excuses as to why they aren’t here. There are a lot of cookies, but none homemade, and a lot of tiny cupcakes with inch-thick pink frosting. You are on your second glass of lemonade when one of the women sitting on the couch asks, “Do you have children?”

  Do you:

  A. Recognize that she wants to talk about herself and pertly ask, “Do you?” and admire the flow of pictures and YouTubes cascading off her phone and murmur “so cute” and “adorable” over and over, a hundred to a thousand times.

  B. Remark, “Yes, that’s what I heard too, rain for tomorrow and probably the sleet will miss us.”

  C. Answer calmly: “Not yet.”

  D. Say, “No, I don’t, because my husband died of a brain aneurysm six months ago and he was only forty-two.” Stare hard at her, to convey that you were trying to get pregnant but you hadn’t yet. Stare very hard, so she understands that you had names for these children who will never exist, two of them, the boy and the girl. Understand that no matter how hard you stare she will never imagine that such a thing could happen to her.

  The correct answer is D. Choose D. The woman you don’t know will mumble, “I’m so sorry; how awful,” and she will work to be sincere and kind. She will rest her hand on your arm, long enough so her fingertips feel seared into your skin. You will have to thank her, you will have to say something to put her at ease, you will have to laugh and stare at her hand still touching your arm—a simple thing, touch—and then you will have to watch her run to the bathroom a minute later or go for more lemonade or it doesn’t matter where she goes because when she returns from the bathroom or the kitchen or outside where she’s gone to check on her husband—still alive—because when she returns, she will sit in a folding chair opposite the room from you, showing pictures of her kids to someone else, talking about nannies and preschools and car seats. At the end of the party, you will be sitting on the center cushion of the big couch, surrounded by no one. You will be alone. You will be alone in the middle of this party eating barbecue the husbands made, finally with a can of beer, steely cold in your hand, finally, finally, toasting your friend’s wedding that you will not attend, toasting your friend’s baby that you hope will be quite colicky.

  5.

  Your friends and some friends of theirs and one friend of the friends—a group, a big group that you don’t want to see—suggest meeting for dinner at a sushi restaurant tucked down a Georgetown side street. You know the place. You used to go there when you were in college. You don’t know why your friends want to meet there except that maybe because it has a parking lot. They’ve never talked much about sushi but now some of them gave up gluten. Some of them also gave up dairy. Some of them are trying to lose twenty pounds. Some of them won’t eat beef. One of the friends’ friends is a vegan who loves seaweed salad. Apparently, the only intersection of what everyone will eat is sushi, just as the only intersection of where everyone will drive is Georgetown (with a parking lot). Friends and their friends live in Bethesda, Rosslyn, Foggy Bottom, Tenleytown, Spring Valley . . . and you, alone in distant Fairfax, which is like another, possibly imaginary, land to them. You have nothing against sushi, or Georgetown
, or these friends, or their friends, but you used to go to this sushi restaurant in college at Georgetown. You haven’t been back for a long time. In college. College. When you were meeting people. People. Meeting. People. You shouldn’t have to explain all this to them, you think. That you want to remember the sushi restaurant in one, singular way—not also as a place you sit with friends and their friends, a noisy, cackling group of “on the side, please,” and someone spills sake and someone else confesses to being in an affair with her married boss and someone else tells a funny story about head lice. Not all that, all those stories, covering up what you want to remember, who you want to remember sitting across from you in the back booth, all this other stuff blanketing over this very pure place, this very perfect place in your past. But they keep emailing: “What about the 17th? Or 18th, if it’s after 7:30 P.M.?”

  You answer by emailing in response:

  A. “Let’s pick another sushi place, if that’s okay with everyone. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine, LOL—will explain later. ”

  B. “17/18 won’t work—I’m so busy lately that please, just meet w/o me. ”

  C. “17 is fine . . . see you then!!! ”

  D. “My husband died of a brain aneurysm six months ago and HE WAS ONLY 42.” Type in all caps at first, delete, then retype in part caps to create the perfect emphasis. Push “reply all” then snap shut your laptop and stare angrily out your office window at a stupid pigeon because now the sushi restaurant is ruined.

  The correct answer is D. Choose D. They will meet without you on the 17th. Someone will spill sake, but the boss story will only be the confession of a crush, which they will decide is harmless enough, and they will share stories from their pasts about all the married men they had crushes on, and then debate whether it’s possible that anyone at their husbands’ offices has crushes on their husbands and laugh uproariously trying to imagine it. Then they will talk about you. They will say things like, “Well, I drove her to the therapist’s office that first time,” and, “Well, I invited her to some parties so she’d get out,” and, “Well, I sent that spa certificate,” and, “Well, I said she could call me anytime, even if it’s late at night,” and, “Well, we all went to the funeral, right?” and, “Well, I never even met the guy.” Then they will fall silent, and their friends will jab chopsticks at the tablecloth. On the 17th you will watch Dirty Dancing on cable and think about how Patrick Swayze is dead, and so is Baby’s father, and how no one else watching the movie is thinking about that and even if they are, it will not be for the same reason you are.

  6.

  You’re sitting in your living room. It’s four thirty. Today you’ve cleaned out the front closet and packed up a number of old hats and scarves and coats into black garbage bags to donate. You’ve sorted through the kitchen drawer with all the junk—tiny wrenches from Ikea furniture that you no longer own, manuals for coffeepots and irons you no longer own, three half-used rolls of duct tape, spools of thread, and all the rest—and you’ve thrown away the takeout menus that are more than a year old and you’ve Magic Markered dates on the remaining menus and you ripped up the menus for Indian places because you’ve decided you don’t like Indian food anymore. You’ve found a folder for the takeout menus. You’ve scrubbed out both bathtubs, even though no one has used the tub in the guestroom for several months, and there’s a woman who comes in to clean every other week anyway. You’ve finally moved the sundresses and summer blouses to another closet. You’ve resewn the hidden button that popped off the half-price skirt. You’ve thrown away the dirty rubber bands from produce and have saved only the clean ones from bundles of mail and you found a small tin to store them in. You organized the wine rack into rows of red and rows of white and one row that holds rosé, prosecco, and champagne. Now you sit in your living room, on the middle cushion of the big couch, and you think about sliding over to sit on the edge, but you don’t, and you think about turning on a lamp, but you don’t, and you think about getting up to pour a glass of bourbon, but you don’t, and so you just sit there.

  It’s Thanksgiving Day. The phone rings. Do you:

  A. Answer cheerfully: “Mom, it’s so nice of you to call. I’m doing fine, I really am.”

  B. Answer cheerfully: “Mom, I’ve only got a minute because I’m headed out the door to have pumpkin pie with some friends, but thanks for calling me. I’m doing fine, I really am.”

  C. Answer tearfully: “Mom, I’m so sad right now and tired and all I want to do is crawl into bed and yank the covers up over my head. I’m not doing fine, I’m really not.”

  D. Answer. Simultaneously mumble and sigh, “Hello,” then listen for a moment, then say, “Mom, my husband died of a brain aneurysm six months ago and he was forty-two and it’s Thanks-fucking-giving, so how the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

  The correct answer is D. Choose D. You will feel bad for using swear words with your mother, but she will not be surprised. She will not be angry. She will not be judgmental. She will not tell you to shut up and count your blessings; nor will she tell you that you should see a therapist. She will not suggest that you get out more. She will not cry. Also, she will not understand, because her husband is still right there in the house with her, downstairs watching the football game, with a blanket tucked around his legs to keep out the chill.

  7.

  You’re a writer. You’re trying to solve a problem. You want to show a reader the single-minded obsession of a woman whose husband has died. You want to show that such a woman has a powerful need to tell her story over and over because she needs to hear it—a woman like that needs to hear it, must speak the words again and again. They cannot be true. They cannot. You want to show that this woman can’t believe that this thing has happened. To her, it has happened to her.

  It has.

  Happened.

  To her.

  This thing has happened to you. This thing has sliced your life into two parts—the before and the after and no one can understand— you are certain no one can understand, you are afraid no one can understand—you don’t know how to understand. That is the problem.

  So you read lots of books: the literary type—A Grief Observed, Widow, The Year of Magical Thinking, What the Living Know, Without—and an armload of the self-help, therapeutic type, each implying that it will explain “how to survive.” You read and you write. You’re a writer. That’s how you solve problems: you write about them. That’s what you know how to do, that’s what you believe in: the power of words. You read books and you write stories, and your stories are pretty good, about women named Vanessa and Kathy and Nicole and women who don’t have names. You write your stories, over and over and over. You write a lot of stories.

  But that isn’t working.

  So you think about what’s more than a story. What have other writers done? (All you know is writing; you’re not going to suddenly film a movie or sculpt or knit.) Other writers have written chapters of PowerPoint presentations or included a flipbook figure along the page margins or splashed the page with tangential footnotes or left empty white pages or given to the narrator the author’s exact name or interspersed quietly horrific interludes about World War One between the stories about a boy growing up in Michigan or invented the nonfiction novel. James Agee said in his preface to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, “It’s only a book by necessity,” frustrated at having to tell a story that was more than a book.

  Flaubert said, “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.”

  You write more and more, clicking sentences and paragraphs into your computer. People have written about far greater tragedies than yours: World War One, World War Two, 9/11, the Holocaust, slavery, Vietnam, the Civil War, any war, all wars, all evil, all massacres, poverty, incest, rape, murder, genocide, patricide, infanticide, starvation, reeducation camps, atomic bombs, mustard gas, nerve gas, land mines, torture, all the millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of deaths and vast tragedies and horrors tha
t can happen to absolutely any person on Earth at absolutely any moment, and thinking of this, you are left with:

  A. Shame.

  B. Guilt.

  C. Fear.

  D. My husband, Robert K. Rauth, Jr., died of a heart attack when he was only thirty-seven.

  There is no correct answer.

  Choose D. You will write a book. You will tell the same story again and again, until you know it is true.

  HEAT

  He’s the one who wanted the thermostat turned down at night. “What, are we saving like fifty cents?” I teased. He just laughed. I went on: “So, like, over the course of the winter that’s maybe what, thirty bucks?” After a pause he said, “Seventy-five.” He could do math in his head like that. “That’s real money,” he said. I guess I agreed because I let him do it. I didn’t care. The blanket was big and fluffy, the bed small. We slept tumbled and entwined together like puppies from the same litter, the two no one can bear to separate.

  The funeral was in April, so it wasn’t until November that I had to turn on the heat for the first time. It was a windy night; the house rattled. My fingers were numb from a day inside, letting the phone ring, pacing through the cold house, not seeing the stacks of mail and magazines, the dirty dishes, piles of laundry—not seeing anything but knowing exactly what was there. I wore two thick sweaters, big woolly socks, and jeans lined with plaid flannel, living as long as I could in the cold because that’s the way it was where we’d both grown up—you put off turning on the heat because once it was on it was on and it wouldn’t come off until spring.