“Have you been in counseling?” asks Maureen.
Nodding, Susan says, “Couples counseling, although I can’t say it did a lot of good. Phil dropped out after a couple sessions with the excuse ‘he didn’t need to talk, he needed to think.’”
“Is he still with the dental hygienist?” asks Shannon.
“No, and I hope he gets gingivitis.” The women laugh at the joke Susan’s surprised she was able to make. She takes a sip of her wine and then a second sip. “He claims they were only ‘together’ three times. As if the cheating wasn’t all that bad because it was only three times. Anyway, he’s living with a friend of his now, trying to figure out what he really wants.”
She tells them about her boys and how the breakup has been easier for her son Jack than her son Sam. “He’s always been the type of kid who just glides through everything.
“Then again, Jack’s two closest friends have divorced parents, plus he was caught up in the excitement of his senior year of high school and making plans for his ‘gap year’—he’s globetrotting around Europe right now. Sam on the other hand is only fourteen, and well, it’s understandably harder for him. He saw a counselor a lot longer than Jack did . . .” Susan shrugs.
“I hope everything works out,” says Shannon.
Tears fill Susan’s eyes, and Maureen reaches out and gives her forearm a squeeze.
“I don’t want to cry,” says Susan, “Lord knows I’ve cried enough.” She dabs at her eyes with a cocktail napkin. “So why don’t I tell you about the feature we’re running instead.”
HAZE’S STORY captivates the women.
“So what’s her prognosis?” asks Maureen.
“Unknown,” says Susan, thinking as she says it, what a sad word that is. “She could stay in a coma for a long time. She could wake up tomorrow and start chatting. She could wake up tomorrow and not be able to. They don’t really know.”
“To have been writing a column for a half century!” says Shannon. “We’ve got a couple who’ve been writing a column on parenting since I’ve been at the magazine, but that’s only six years. How could she come up with so much material?”
“I don’t know, but she did,” says Susan. “And her voice . . . well, she’s always written in a unique—and uncensored—way. Her columns really do feel like she’s talking just to you.”
“We had a political columnist who was pretty popular,” says Maureen. “But I had to fire him when I realized as good as he was at pontificating, he was better at plagiarizing. And he’d only been writing for two years!”
“We just finished publishing all the columns Haze wrote about her husband,” says Susan. “There weren’t all that many, but the reader feedback has been phenomenal.”
“Why do you think that is?” asks Shannon, holding up her emptied glass at the passing waiter.
“Because it was such a love story,” says Susan, and she tells them about Haze’s columns.
January 8, 1969
Brigadoon, as you know, is my dog through marriage, a mutt of indeterminate heritage (although there’s some definite border collie and Lab, or maybe it’s springer and retriever?), who’ll bring me a ball whenever Royal’s called away to deliver a baby or set a broken bone, inviting me into a game of catch to cheer me up. I read that dogs can smell about two hundred times better than humans; well, Briggy is also about two hundred times better than humans when it comes to reading emotions. She knows when she needs to comfort, when she needs to be playful, be protective, be encouraging, and as she adjusts her mood to better whatever one we’re in, she’s always adoring. Don’t we love our pets for their unending love of us? We provide them food and shelter, sure, but they provide us with an excuse to believe we’re worthy of their big loyal love.
You should see Briggy when Royal plays the piano. We allow her on the furniture (really, why not?), but when Royal treats us to a concert, Briggy doesn’t sit on the couch but next to it. It’s as if she wants no distraction. Her posture is straight, her ears perked up, her brown eyes fixed on the music maker. Van Cliburn, Glenn Gould, Jerry Lee Lewis couldn’t ask for a more devoted fan.
Royal is modest about his talent, saying he plays “like a mildly talented fourth-grader,” but to my—and Brigadoon’s—ears, he plays with a light touch and deep feeling. His “Clair de Lune” and “Für Elise” could make you tear up, but it’s the song with which he closes every session at the piano that makes Briggy cry. Literally. It’s a parlor trick they’ve worked on, and it’s a good one. When she hears Royal pound out the opening bars, her tail starts wagging, and when he sings, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog,” she lifts her fine snout to the ceiling and lets out a plaintive howl, and she howls each time Royal sings the dastardly accusation.
I know most dog owners believe that theirs is the best dog in the world and that many wives are so inclined to think the same of their husbands, but I believe with this story I offer irrefutable proof that both Brigadoon and Royal are deserving of championship titles.
In celebration of them, and all good doggies and hubbies, here’s a really tasty recipe.
SPREAD THE LOVE BANANA BREAD
¾ cup shortening (may use butter)
1½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
3 cups flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
2 cups mashed ripe bananas
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease two loaf pans.
In large bowl, mix shortening and sugar. Add rest of ingredients, and mix well.
Spoon into two pans. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
(I don’t mind when I don’t get around to eating bananas and they get too ripe. I just put them in the freezer, knowing I can use them for this delicious recipe!)
March 30, 1970
Tomlinson’s Tuxedos & Formal Wear must have had their biggest payday since prom night, considering all the elegantly suited men and women gathered to celebrate the opening of the new wing of Granite Creek Hospital. I was particularly taken by a certain handsome doctor who offered this quote to a local television reporter: “Our aim—every doctor’s aim—is to provide care equal to that of the Mayo Clinic. This expansion and our new equipment will help us in that goal.”
It was a gala celebrating civic pride and can-do spirit, and that the dance band was composed of three doctors and four nurses (Dr. Jill Halverson absolutely shone as a vocalist—she’s probably been told not to sing to any of her patients, because none of them would want to leave!) and that the rubber chicken dinner was not rubbery at all but succulent and finely flavored were extra bonuses.
When we got home, after cursing the high heels I kicked off and the girdle I wiggled out of, I whined to Royal (the certain handsome doctor quoted above), “I wanted to dance with you! Why were you hunkered in the corner so long with that young man?”
I am pleased to tell you, my husband did not roll his eyes or sigh heavily but instead said, with a brightness of tone unexpected at one thirty in the morning:
“Haze, I’m so sorry, I should have introduced you. That was Joe (as I don’t know if he’d mind being named, I’ll protect his privacy); he just graduated with a double major in business and economics. The last half of his senior year was pretty tough—even though he’d always been a dean’s list student—because his grandmother got sick.”
I knew this was going somewhere so I just let Royal talk.
“He said he felt so helpless watching her suffer, that he could tell her to invest in gold or diversify her portfolio, but since she wasn’t an investor and didn’t have a portfolio, he felt pretty useless.”
Here Royal stared off, fiddling with his wedding ring, and after a moment he told me he was the grandmother’s doctor.
“Joe told me how much he appreciated me taking the time to sit and listen to her, how he couldn’t believe that when I learned his grandmother played Scrabble, I set up a board, and we’d make our plays during my rounds.
As if that were any hardship on my part!”
(Royal’s an avid Scrabble player.)
“Joe thanked me for, quote, making his grandmother’s last weeks a lot nicer than they could have been. I told him I was just doing my job, to which he replied, ‘That’s what I’d like to do.’”
“So he’s going onto medical school?” I asked, quickly adding the very relevant question: “What if he gets drafted?”
“He dodged that bullet—or should I say bullets.” said Royal. “He enlisted right out of school and luckily was never sent over.”
(To all of you potential letter writers admonishing my husband’s patriotism; let me remind you that Royal is a veteran whose experiences in Korea have molded his position that war should only be a very last resort.)
Royal then went on to say that Joe had accepted a position at an investment firm in Chicago.
“And he told me that he wants to doctor his clients the way I doctored his grandmother; he wants each one to know they matter. He was a very thoughtful young man. We talked about everything from emerging markets to cancer treatments to Sophia Loren.”
“Ooh,” I said, “what’d you say about her?”
Royal shook his head. “Privileged information.”
I went to bed thinking about that young man and how lucky he is to have figured out such an important thing already. Imagine the kind of a world where everyone believes everyone else matters. It’d be the end of war (oh, when will the one we’re in stop?) of famine, of persecution; the end of everything that imperils this beautiful place. Oh my. I luxuriated in thinking about this brave new world for a good long time, but then my shallow side surfaced through my deep thoughts, and I wondered, what did they say about Sophia Loren?
August 14, 1970
Our state bird is the loon, our state flower is the lady’s slipper, and our state motto is “L’Étoile du Nord” (which is a pretty fancy French motto for modest Minnesotans). Do you notice I say “our”? Yes, my allegiance has officially switched from my home state to the one I now call home.
Growing up in North Dakota, where the earth was spread out like a smooth and endless carpet, I never paid much mind to the beauties of the prairie, but I do appreciate them now: the way the nap of that carpet—grass, wheat, soy and corn fields—changes in the wind, how dawn and dusk play out on that vast, endless horizon of sky, the wide-openness of the place.
But Minnesota, ahh, Minnesota with its bounty of trees, of pines and spruce and birch and ash and oaks and elms and maples, with a lake to the left of you and a lake to the right.
Our big “official” honeymoon has not yet been taken (it’s been over two and a half years, but who’s counting?), and so we continue, when our schedules work out, to take our little honeymoons, hereafter known as our honey (crescent) moons. We recently packed up the car with gear and provisions and drove to Grand Marais, a charming little town that huddles alongside Lake Superior. We climbed along what’s called (the things you learn!) a tombolo, an island connected to shore via a gravel bar. This particular tombolo (I love that word—it sounds like an Italian brass instrument) is called Artists’ Point, and rightly so as there were several artists, canvasses set up on easels, capturing the landscape—or waterscape—with their oil paints and brushes.
We puttered around the Ben Franklin store there, and Royal bought me a new notebook (I’m writing this in it now) with a picture of a black bear on its cover. I bought him a T-shirt with a loon whose speech bubble reads, “I’m Crazy about Grand Marais.”
We drove up the Gunflint Trail, a gorgeous scenic byway that meanders from Lake Superior’s North Shore to the banks of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Readers, heed my advice: take this drive through dark green forests, past lakes that were dug out by glaciers. If possible, take it with someone who will sing—as Royal did—songs that hail the beautiful outdoors: “I’ve Been Everywhere,” “This Land Is Your Land,” “The Happy Wanderer,” and “God Bless America.”
Royal didn’t object to me joining in, although my voice is one that is always in search of a key; he was more about sharing the joy of voices raised. In fact, his strong and lovely voice was like a hand, pulling up my more feeble one.
One song we improvised, to the tune of a Christmas carol, was inspired by the wildlife we managed to avoid hitting (whew!) as they leaped, jumped, and ran across the two-lane road.
“Five golden deer! Four sly raccoons, three hopping rabbits, two skittering skunks, and a moose with a rack of huge antlers!”
It was a little vacation hour-wise but a big vacation experience-wise. We paddled a canoe on two deep blue lakes, we fished successfully, eating our northern pike on an open campfire, we skipped rocks, hiked trails, and at the Gunflint Lodge, played a rousing game of Texas Hold ’Em with a couple from Bristol, England.
My niece and her bridegroom got so sunburnt on their Mexican honeymoon that they came back home two days early. My old college roommate got her passport and money stolen in Paris on her honeymoon and spent too much time at a place that wasn’t on their initial itinerary: the American Embassy. I’m not denigrating honeymoons. It’s just that our honey (crescent) moons are working out just fine, thank you.
“Compliments of the gentlemen in the corner booth,” says the waiter, placing another round of drinks in front of Shannon, Maureen, and Susan.
The women look across the bar to see three men waving.
“Oh no,” says Susan. “It’s the Alpha Alpha Assholes.”
“Tell them thanks but no thanks,” Shannon instructs the waiter, adding, “Put this round on my tab.”
“Okay,” says the waiter, trying to hide his smile. He’d waited on the same men the night before, and they had tipped him about 5 percent.
“So tell us more,” says Maureen, helping herself to the skewered cocktail onions in her just-delivered martini.
“Well, he was often mentioned in her columns—you know, as having accompanied her to this performance or on that trip to the Twin Cities—but she really did want to respect his privacy, and so she didn’t write all that many columns specifically about him.”
“Did they ever take their ‘official’ honeymoon?” asks Shannon. “And did she write about it?”
“No. She never wrote about an official honeymoon because she never got to take one.”
“She didn’t?” says Maureen, her voice soft.
Taking a sip of her chardonnay, Susan shakes her head.
April 18, 1971
When it rains, it pours . . . and sometimes a typhoon sweeps in. Most of you are aware of the two-hundred-mph gales and crashing waves that threatened to drown me and pushed me way out to sea, where I bobbed up, far from shore, clinging to the lifesaver not of my making, but yours. Yes, your many kindnesses—from your cards and letters to your offers to chauffeur/shop/clean, to the many hot dishes swaddled in dishtowels, to the pies, cakes, and canned tomatoes and peaches delivered—thank you. (And to Mrs. Melvin Henke and Doris Dussault, a special thank you; grief stepped out into the hallway anytime I helped myself to your Famous Chinese Chicken Casserole and your Lemon Dream Pie, respectively.) And how to thank my mother, who tended me so carefully these past weeks?
Yes, as it’s been reported in this paper, Royal, my dear husband is dead. (I can just hear Mrs. Cullin scolding me, “It took you a whole paragraph before you introduce your topic sentence!”) But you see, I don’t want it to be my topic sentence, I don’t want it to be my topic, I don’t want it to be true.
My slim, nonsmoking husband felled by a heart that should have beat for decades longer, but according to the autopsy couldn’t because its left anterior artery was totally blocked. They call the kind of heart attack he had a “widow-maker,” and they called it right, because it made me a widow.
Winter has reluctantly stepped aside, and yesterday I opened the kitchen windows to let in the toddling infant that is spring. Air so fresh I could clean my countertops with it burst in, and the polka-dot curtains flew up with a gasp, like skirts
in a mischievous wind. When we first moved into our house, Royal insisted we keep the yellow-and-white curtains the previous owner left because they made him smile.
I didn’t tell him that I thought they were gaudy—the polka dots were nearly as big as tennis balls, and one of the first items on my “to do” list was to “sew new kitchen curtains!”
I hadn’t gotten around to it, and I’m glad the curtains are still here, and in them, one of the stories of our married life together. A short life—we just celebrated our third anniversary in December—but still, it seems our house sings with his songs. I know I should close the fall board to keep the dust out of the piano, but I just can’t, wanting it ready for him to sit down and play, wanting to hear his and Brigadoon’s “Hound Dog” duet.
Royal always got up before me and always whistled when he shaved, and I’d holler out a sleepy, “Don’t cut yourself!” to which he’d holler, “Ouch!” A little joke. So many little jokes funny and dear to no one but us. He was a meticulous man (which you want your doctor to be), and the brush in his shaving mug is rinsed clean, but I still hold it to my nose and smell his shaving cream on it. To me, it’s a perfume I could get lost in.
I have asked, “Why me?” a hundred thousand times, but I asked the same question, albeit with less rage and more awe when I fell in love with Royal and he asked me to marry him. “Why me?” It had been my luck for a long time that the coin landed on heads. Now it’s clattered to the floor, landing on tails.
Susan has just finished telling the women about the column when the fraternity men stumble past them.
“Hope you’re enjoying your drinks,” slurs one of them, and to his friends he says, “Buncha lezzies.”
10
Sitting on his bike, his fingers curled around the chain-link fence, Sam watches a backhoe dig up dirt and a bulldozer push it around at the new library construction site. It is only when he looks up and sees the big digital sign in front of the Granite Creek Savings & Loan flashing the time and temperature—11:14AM 84 DEGREES—that he pushes off.
Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes) Page 10
