by Becky Aikman
“People tell me I should take a year off to recover from the trauma,” Denise said, “but I don’t have a choice. I will do whatever I have to do.”
Widowed after only a year of marriage, of course she would want to stay in this apartment, I thought. It was not only her home but a reminder of who her husband was, of who they were together. How could she let that go without a fight?
I considered my own home, an apartment in a Brooklyn brownstone full of period details I’d always found a bit grand for my humble modern life. Next to my grab bag of latter-day furnishings, the building’s parquet floors, high ceilings, and majestic moldings felt borrowed from a more formal past. Often I was struck by the tension between past and present there. That home had sheltered me through my marriage to Bernie and beyond. It was the place where I most felt his absence, the place where I most felt his presence. Every time I returned to that empty apartment in the months after his death, I dropped my bags and walked to the mantel, where I still displayed his photograph, a little overexposed. The washed-out light gave it a haunting, spectral quality. I felt the familiar yearning for his company, the urge to tell him everything that had happened. We had shared everything, as happy couples do. I spoke aloud: “Hey, sweetie.”
My home was full of light, and its familiarity had been a comfort during the worst times. Yes, it had been expensive maintaining the place on my own, but like Denise, I wasn’t willing to give up something I loved because the person I loved was gone. Holding on there through so many momentous changes, I often wondered about the definition of home. Is it the place where you live, or is it the place where the people you love reside? And if the people you love are gone, where is home then?
Most of the women that night at Denise’s were wrestling one way or another with the question of where they belonged. “Ever since this happened,” said Dawn, “I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, like a tornado has picked up my house and is spinning it around. I just want to know where it’s going to land.”
Where to land—it came up again and again as we squeezed tightly around the table, unveiling dishes and passing them family style, hand to hand. Lesley contributed chicken tartly perfumed with sliced lemons, rosemary, olives, and a South African chutney made with apricots. I had brought sinfully buttery mashed potatoes and sautéed brussels sprouts, a nice contrast, I hoped, with Tara’s crisp salad. Dawn poured a late-vintage Malbec.
That would have been the moment for me to present my idea for the group, but I let the opportunity get away from me again. Marcia told us she was facing a dilemma about her home, too. Like many couples with all-consuming jobs, she and her husband had relied on each other to make the most of what little time they spared from work. He had been the gregarious one, hosting clamorous parties on weekends at a country house that they owned. During the week, with Marcia logging long hours at the office, they camped out in a basic city apartment that was more like a dorm room.
“After he died, it was too hard to manage the house,” Marcia said. She sold it, but now she was holed up alone in that claustrophobic apartment, isolated, extending scant invitations to family or friends. It was where she lived, but it didn’t sound like where she belonged. Between her corporate schedule and that spartan setup at home, I wondered whether she had any space or time for pleasure, any inducement to engage a wider world now that her partner was gone.
For Tara, the question of where to live was only one strand in a snarl of problems tangled up with her husband’s alcoholism. First: work. She had quit her job under the strain of his final years, and now she was looking for something else. Next: social standing. She had filed for divorce after one of his failed attempts at rehab, but she hadn’t followed through with it before he died, which made her role in society even more confused than it was for the rest of us.
“Divorced or widowed … I don’t fit in anywhere,” she said in her elegant, smoky voice. “That’s the problem with labels. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t … love my husband. It doesn’t mean that I wasn’t … in shock when he died.” But it did mean that she now felt like an oddity in her circle, where society revolved around couples.
That left the matter of home. “I love my house,” Tara went on. “But I’d like to live … somewhere where there are a lot of single people … and whether you’re divorced, widowed, whatever … you’re still included.”
Everyone nodded. “Moving would be good for you,” said Dawn.
“Except I don’t know where I’m moving.” Tara toyed with some chicken on her plate. “I’d just like to be more … settled. I’d like to know where I’m going to live … what my life will be like.” I was sure the others knew how she felt. I certainly did, even now. “But I’m also trying to embrace the openness of this situation. I don’t think there’s a timetable for everything … falling into place. I’m trying to come to appreciate the lack of knowing.” She gave a skewed little chuckle at the absurdity of that quest.
The glamorous Dawn told us that she knew where she belonged—with her children, guiding them through their own course of grief—but that she also wished she could meet the right man and re-create a family like the one they’d lost.
She had tried dating a couple of times but was daunted by the complications with an eight-year-old girl and nine-year-old boy at home. None of the other women had dipped their toes in the intriguing waters of dating yet, except for Lesley, who was considering whether to leap to the next level.
“I have a revelation,” she said in her flirtiest tone. “I met a man seven months ago, and when I move into my new house, I’m thinking of asking him to move in with me.”
Dawn’s eyes popped. “How did this happen?” We dropped our forks and leaned forward, ears cocked like directional antennas.
“The old-fashioned way, on Match.com.” Lesley’s voice was lighthearted and bright, but then she softened it. “I wasn’t expecting this, you know. I was married for twenty-six years. I knew that I had been loved and that I had loved so deeply, so after he died, I felt like, that’s fine, if that’s all I’m going to have, then I’ve had it. Some people don’t even have that.”
“That’s how I feel, too,” Dawn said firmly. “Anything I get from here is a plus.”
“But after I went through this for a couple years,” Lesley continued, “I thought, hell, I have so much to give away. To waste it, to never be in love again …”
I had to admire Lesley’s nerve to even consider jumping into the deep end again after the shock of her husband’s suicide. The anxiety was there on her face, but there was elation, too. “I’m telling you, girls, I was in the desert for a couple of years, and I’d forgotten how wonderful it was to have somebody hold my hand. The first time it happened I thought I was going to die! I thought, am I twelve?”
“Yes!” Tara said. “Twelve years old. I know what you mean. Some friends offered to fix me up with somebody. Nothing happened, but I was … sick … to … my … stomach.”
Now that we had gravitated to the subject of men, I could see there was no hope of me bringing up anything else until dessert. I saw faces lighting up all around the table as everyone absorbed what Lesley was saying. It’s okay to think this way. It’s okay to feel this way. It’s okay to want love again and to act on that desire. That it was Lesley, who had suffered such a brutal shock, who could find the nerve to invite a new man into her life made it seem tantalizingly possible. I felt pulses quicken around our tight little circle. Dating again—after many years of marriage followed by one or two more of grief-imposed celibacy—it had all the scary, forbidden thrill of that first kiss in adolescence. It occurred to me at that moment how much widowhood reminded me of adolescence: a time of uncertainty, of transformation, of trying on new identities, of wondering what it would be like if the cute boy in algebra class asked you out, or more.
Tara was on the same wavelength. “I have to say, honestly … I haven’t been with another man … for thirty-two years. I was twenty-two when I met David.”
&nb
sp; “I promise you,” Lesley said, eyebrows high. “It still works.”
“But … it has to be serendipitous,” Tara said.
“I love that word—serendipitous,” said Dawn.
“But you have to try,” Lesley advised them sternly. “You have to get back on the bus no matter what.”
“I’m happy to get on the bus. I just don’t know if I want …” Tara paused longer than usual, “a relationship.”
“Then you just need to bonk and look for something later,” said Lesley. “But bonk in the meantime. You haven’t had it in a while.”
“I’d be delighted to … bonk,” Tara said with exaggerated dignity. “But I would need to find … a bonkee.”
“Or a bonk-er,” said Lesley.
“If it’s good,” said Dawn, “you’ll switch positions after a while.”
Marcia looked askance, but the rest of us shrieked with laughter. When Tara found an opening, she tamped down the frivolity by interjecting a thoughtful note.
“Talking to all of you, I realize,” she said, “there is this interesting thing … about our situation. We can be free to explore … and relive our twenties again, but have the experience of being … older.”
Denise passed out cookies for dessert, padding around the table barefoot, as she had told me she would. Things had loosened up all right, far more than I could have predicted. I surely hadn’t expected to find bonking on the agenda, in whatever position, within the first couple hours of our acquaintance. But sex, I recognized, was something widows couldn’t talk about with anybody else, even though sex, companionship, love, lust—call them what you will—weren’t frivolous concerns. They were some of the foremost features of a happy life, or had been up to now, anyway. Sooner or later, all these women were going to face a difficult series of choices. Do I get involved with someone else? Who should it be? How involved do I get? It was still largely hypothetical for most members of the group, and it was stressful to contemplate, but we had found a place to talk about it, a place with no judgments.
“We’re having so much fun,” Lesley said. “Who knew these poor, sad women could have such a ball?”
“I was so afraid,” said Tara, “that this wouldn’t be fun.”
We’d been there nearly four hours, and I still hadn’t asked my question. Dessert was on the table. It was now or never. Don’t blow it.
“Now that we’ve all met, what would you think if we did this once a month?” I asked. “We could do things together, fun things, things we’ve never tried before, and not feel pressure to be sad. There’s so much social pressure on widows that if they’re not acting sad enough, they aren’t proper widows.”
“That is so true,” Tara said.
“I would personally like to fail Widow 101,” said Dawn.
“Widow is such a terrible word,” Lesley said, to vigorous agreement all around.
“We should come up with another word,” said Marcia.
“Let’s eliminate it altogether,” said Dawn, releasing her feelings with escalating brio. “And everything that goes with it. All the old ways of thinking about what you should be and how you should feel, and if you feel a certain way you should feel guilty, and if you don’t feel a certain way you should feel guilty. It’s crazy, the whole widow thing.”
“To me, it means old,” said Lesley.
“And sad,” said Denise.
“And black and dark,” Lesley went on.
“That you should die along with him,” said Dawn, not one to hold back.
“I don’t want people to feel sorry for me,” Marcia said curtly.
“Exactly,” said Lesley.
I seized an opening. “It shouldn’t have these connotations,” I said. “I came to realize this after a while. I became a widow, and I am not any of those things. That’s how I came to embrace the word eventually. And that’s why I’d like us to try this for a year. I don’t want this to be a stodgy group following preconceived ideas. I want us to get out there, out of our comfort zones, because, let’s face it, we’re out there already.”
They waited a good long beat while they pondered the proposal. I studied their faces, considered the almost comical mismatches in their personalities, temperaments, and manners of living.
“I think,” said Lesley, relishing the suspense, “that this has the makings of a wild and raucous group.”
Ideas started flying like fireworks. Six of us meeting once a month—the permutations were endless. Someone suggested we pamper ourselves at a spa, not exactly an extreme adventure, I thought, but sure—why not enjoy ourselves? Someone else proposed dancing lessons. “We need to get our hips busy again,” Lesley said in her saucy way. We talked about volunteering or traveling, maybe to Peru, or Italy, or Southeast Asia. Tara, of all people, suggested we buy new lingerie together.
“I’ve been wearing what my daughters call … The Mummy, this spandex microfiber flesh-colored whatever,” she said. “I need help.”
“Does this mean you’re all in?” I asked.
Four voices answered in sequence, like the Four Musketeers: “I’m in.”
Tara, of course, with her flair for drama, couldn’t say it flat out. “You know what I decided, on my way here? If this is negative … if it’s not feeding me … if it’s not making me a better person … then I’m not interested. I’m bailing. I need to do everything that feels right … and good … for me, without apologies to anybody.”
Dawn tried to cut her short. “You suggested the lingerie, girl, so that means you’re in.”
“I would have bailed,” Tara persisted. “But the thing is … it didn’t take two minutes for me to know. I’m not going to let this go. I’ve had to let so many things in my life go.” The room was quiet now. “And my story, which is so fucked up on so many levels … I need to let that go, too. I need to take control of my story from now on.”
She was in. We all were. It all seemed so right as we stood to clear the table. So many choices to face, so many paths to try, so many stories to tell, if not to control—as Dawn had said, serendipity was a good word, too. Whatever happened, at least we’d have this. We wouldn’t be alone. There, in that bewitching red room, we made a pact, once a month on a Saturday night, to stand together, whatever had happened up to now, whatever would happen from now on.
Back home at four in the morning, hopelessly buzzed, I couldn’t sleep. Hearing so many of my own once-solitary impressions echoing back at me had been a relief—I wasn’t alone—but also disturbing. It reminded me of the nights the first year after Bernie died, nights when I stared at the high white ceiling of my bedroom, trying to give order to thoughts that resembled some garish rococo wallpaper. Back then, I was unable to see my way forward. Like these women tonight, I didn’t know who I was; how I would get by on my own; who, if anyone, I might love in the future. I knew the questions well. The snowball effect gets most acute in the hours just before dawn. I flashed on Thelma and Louise again, the scene at the end when the women look at each other when they think they’ve run out of options and say, “Let’s keep going.” I hoped the women tonight saw that they still had choices, more choices than they knew, more choices than I knew I had when Bernie had just died.
Yes, I thought, let’s keep going.
chapter
FIVE
as far as I could tell, the only one having second thoughts was me. The laughing was great—the laughing and the possibilities. But spending a few hours in the company of women whose loneliness was still so new and raw reminded me of my earlier existence as a misfit widow at a time when I wanted to leave it behind.
Nothing about that existence was what I would have expected, assuming I had expected any of it, which I did not.
Before Bernie got sick, I had led one of those normal, happy lives straight out of Archie comics. I grew up the middle child of a normal, happy family in a normal, happy small town in normal Pennsylvania. The main street had all of three stoplights, and it seemed that the worst that could happen was a clo
udy day at the swimming hole. Places like that still existed then, probably somewhere now, too. I spent dreamy afternoons at the town reservoir, sunning in a bikini on the coarsely mowed grass, playing Hearts with friends and wishing for something heartfelt to happen. Later, in New York, I would meet people who claimed to be bigger hicks than me, but usually I’d win hands down on two points. For most of my childhood, there was no movie theater in my town. And I never tasted pizza until I went to college. Or Chinese food, for that matter.
There was a fair amount of sensory deprivation in such a backwater upbringing, and I was hungry for knowledge, experience, and maybe some spicy food. After college, I headed to graduate school in journalism in New York, seeking a stimulating existence in a stimulating place. Which is where I met Bernie, a writer who taught there as an adjunct professor.
The next two decades granted me all the sensory overload of my youthful daydreams. I signed on as a fast-breaking news reporter in the Manhattan office of New York Newsday, downing the city’s potent highball of culture and business, covering food, fashion, media, and Wall Street. It was intoxicating, the most fun a person could have and still get paid. And my partnership with Bernie somehow rounded it all out. I wrote about the cultural overlords of the day, fielding whatever assignments the editors lobbed onto my desk, while Bernie was a genuine crusader for the underdog, a tenaciously independent journalist who took on only work that mattered to him. He wrote about homeless teenagers, youth unemployment, and his masterwork, a book about a sensational rape case that exposed the fissures of class, gender, and justice in a small town. It took him years to pull it off and had the kind of impact that fulfilled his passion for challenging the status quo.