by Anne Tyler
“Maybe I should come in with you.”
“Nandina. Go.”
She sighed and switched the ignition back on. I gave her a peck on the cheek—a concession. (I’m not usually so demonstrative.) Then I heaved myself out of the car and shut the door and strode off.
It took a moment before I heard her drive away, but she did, finally.
Just in case some of the neighbors were watching from their windows, I made a point of approaching the house like any other man heading home after an outing. I stabbed the front sidewalk briskly with my cane; I glanced around at the fallen branches with mild interest. I unlocked my front door, opened it, shut it behind me. Sagged back against it as if I’d been kicked in the stomach.
An eerie blue light filled the hall, from the blue tarp overhead that showed through the gaps in the ceiling. The living room was too much of a jungle to navigate, and of course I didn’t even try to look beyond it to the sunporch. I stepped across a floorful of mail and made my way to the rear of the house. In the kitchen I was relieved to find only a scattering of wood chips on every surface, and one broken windowpane where a stray twig had poked through. But the dining room, to the right, was a ruin. I closed the door again after the briefest glance inside. That was okay, though. A person could live just fine without a dining room! I could eat in the kitchen. I went over to the sink and turned the faucet on. Water flowed immediately.
In the bottom of the sink sat a mug, the interior glazed with dried honey and stippled with bark dust, a teaspoon slanting out of it.
Sometimes the most recent moments can seem so long, long ago.
I walked back through the hall to check the guest room, the bathroom, and our bedroom. All fine. Maybe I could turn the guest room into a makeshift living room while I was having repairs done. In the shower stall I found a grasshopper. I let it stay where it was. In the bedroom I was tempted to lie down and simply crash—not so much sleep as tumble into unconsciousness—but I didn’t give in. I had an assignment to complete. I went to Dorothy’s side of the bed and pulled open the drawer of her nightstand. My fear was that she had taken her address book to the sunporch, which sometimes happened; but no, there it lay, underneath an issue of Radiology Management.
Her family’s name was Rosales. (It was her name, too. She hadn’t changed it when we married.) There were several Rosaleses in the address book, all written in Dorothy’s jagged, awkward hand, but the one I settled on was Tyrone, her oldest brother. He’d become head of the family after her father died, and I figured that if I phoned him I wouldn’t have to phone the others. I also figured that, with luck, I might get Tyrone’s wife instead, since in Texas it was barely past midday and Tyrone himself would most likely be at work. I had never met Tyrone or his wife, either one—or anybody else in the family, for that matter—but it seemed to me that a mere sister-in-law would be less subject to some sort of emotional reaction. I was very concerned about the possibility of an emotional reaction. Really I didn’t want to make this call at all. Couldn’t we just go on as if nothing had happened, since Dorothy never saw her family anyhow? Who would be the wiser? But Nandina had told me I had to do it.
The phone at the other end rang three times, which was long enough for me to start hoping for an answering machine. (Although I knew full well that it would be wrong to leave a mere message.) Then a sharp click. “Hello?” A man’s voice, low and growly.
“Tyrone Rosales?”
“Who’s this?”
“This is—this is—”
Of all times, of all impermissible times, I was going to have my speech problem. I made myself go quiet. I took a deep breath. “Aaron,” I said very slowly. I have more success with A words, as long as I slide into them without any hard-edged beginning. “Woolcott” felt as if it might present difficulties, though, so I said, “Your b-b-broth—”
“Aaron, Dorothy’s husband?” he asked.
“Mmhmm.”
“What’s up?”
I took another breath.
“Is something wrong with her?” he asked.
I said, “A t-t-t—a tree fell on the house.”
Silence.
“A tree fell on the house,” I said again.
“Is she okay?”
I said, “No.”
“Is she dead?”
I said, “Yes.”
“Oh,” Tyrone said. “Good God.”
I waited for him to absorb it. Besides, it felt restful, not talking.
Finally he said, “When’s the service?”
“There won’t—won’t—no service.”
Nandina and I had already decided. And no burial, either; just cremation. I thought Dorothy would prefer that.
Tyrone said, “No service.”
A pause.
“She was raised religious,” he said.
“Yes, but—”
It seemed best to leave it at that: Yes, but.
“Well,” Tyrone said after a minute, “anyhow, it wouldn’t’ve been so easy for us to leave the animals.”
“Right.”
“Did she suffer?”
“No!”
I took another breath.
“No,” I said, “she did not suffer.”
“She always was real spunky. Real mind of her own.”
“It’s true.”
“I remember once, when we were kids, me and the others were chewing soft tar from the road on this really hot day and Dorothy comes along and we say, ‘Here, Dorothy, try some.’ She says, ‘Are you kidding?’ Says, ‘Why would I want to eat a highway?’ ”
That sounded like Dorothy, all right. I could hear her saying it. Dorothy as a child had always seemed unimaginable, but now I could imagine her clearly.
“She was named for the girl in The Wizard of Oz,” Tyrone said. “I guess she mentioned that.”
“Oh. No, she didn’t.”
“That was our grandpa’s idea. He was the one who named all of us. He wanted to make sure we sounded American.”
“I see.”
“So,” he said. “Anyhow. Thanks for the phone call. Sorry for your loss.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I told him.
After that, there was nothing more for us to say. Although I felt this odd reluctance to let him hang up. For a while there, while he was talking, Dorothy had been her old self again: strong-willed and sturdy and stubborn. Not the passive victim she had become in her final days.
It was a good thing I had a job to go to. My job was my salvation.
I went in early, took no breaks, didn’t stop for lunch. The only drawback was my co-workers, so long-faced and solicitous. Well, except for Irene. Nobody would ever accuse Irene of solicitude. But I was avoiding Irene, because, I don’t know, I guess over the years I’d had a little crush on her, and now that seemed obscene. All at once I didn’t even like her.
So I made sure to arrive before any of the others, and I’d hurry straight to my office and close the door behind me. Later I’d hear Nandina come in, or I could assume it was Nandina since she was our early bird as a rule. Then, after that, Charles and Peggy, and finally Irene. I’d hear murmurs in the outer room and laughter and the ringing of a phone. Eventually, Peggy would tap on my door with just the tips of her fingers. “Aaron? Are you in there?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Coffee’s made. Shall I bring you some?”
“No, thanks.”
A hesitation. Then the sound of her soft-soled shoes padding away again.
It had never been my plan to go into the family business. I attended college at Stanford, on the other side of the continent, and I’d expected to remain out there and make my own way in the world. But my father had his first heart attack right about the time I graduated, and he asked me to come home and run things while he convalesced. Now that I look back, I see how I let myself be bamboozled. Nandina, it turned out, was running things just fine. I guess I just liked to think that someone needed me. Besides which, I’d had nothing more specific in min
d, having majored in English.
In my great-grandfather’s time the company called itself a “gentleman’s publisher,” which was their euphemism for “vanity press.” Even now we were sort of mealy-mouthed about it, although the word “gentleman’s” had been replaced in modern times by “private.” Still, the principle was the same. The majority of our authors paid us, and most did not welcome my editing advice, although, believe me, they could have used it.
In fact, once those print-on-demand outfits started popping up on the Internet, I might very well have found myself out of a job if not for Charles. Charles was our sales rep, and he dreamed up, single-handedly, the concept of the Beginner’s series. The Beginner’s Wine Guide, The Beginner’s Monthly Budget, The Beginner’s Book of Dog Training. These were something on the order of the Dummies books, but without the cheerleader tone of voice—more dignified. And far more classily designed, with deckle-edged pages and uniform hard-backed bindings wrapped in expensive, glossy covers. Also, we were more focused—sometimes absurdly so, if you asked me. (Witness The Beginner’s Spice Cabinet.) Anything is manageable if it’s divided into small enough increments, was the theory; even life’s most complicated lessons. Not The Beginner’s Cookbook but The Beginner’s Soups, The Beginner’s Desserts, and The Beginner’s Dinner Party, which led the reader through one perfect company meal from start to finish, including grocery list. Not The Beginner’s Child Care but The Beginner’s Colicky Baby—our best-seller, in its modest way, and continually in print since the day it first appeared.
I was in sole charge of editing these, and Irene oversaw the design—even if she did call them “giftie books.” Then Charles ran around marketing them like a man possessed. He was convinced that sooner or later the series would make us all rich, although so far it hadn’t happened.
People often referred to us as The Beginner’s Press, but that was most definitely not our name; good Lord, no. It would hardly have inspired confidence. We were Woolcott Publishing, the words spelled out in tall, slim, sans-serif lettering, all lowercase, considered very modern once upon a time. (But printed only on the front of the Beginner’s books, of course, since the spines were far too narrow.)
In the first weeks after Dorothy died, I happened to be working on The Beginner’s Book of Birdwatching. As usual, an expert had been employed to supply the raw material, an ornithologist from the University of Maryland, and the result was an incoherent overload of information that I was struggling to whip into shape—also as usual.
It was my practice to settle upon a mental image of one individual reader, the way public speakers are told to direct their words toward one individual listener. I had decided that our reader in this case was a young woman who had been invited to go birdwatching with a young man she secretly fancied. It would be their very first date. She would certainly not be expected to know the Latin names of the birds she saw (although my expert was chomping at the bit to provide them), but she needed help in her choices of what clothes to wear, what equipment to bring, and what questions to ask. Or should she stay totally silent? Predictably, my expert had not thought to address this issue. I phoned him for a consultation, several times over. I made handwritten notes in the margins. I crossed out, crossed out, crossed out. I was left with a book that was too slender, and I phoned him yet again.
At the end of every day I put everything away in my desk, reached for my cane, rose to my feet, and approached my office door. There I squared my shoulders and assumed what I hoped was a cheerful, oblivious expression. Then I opened the door and strode out.
“Aaron! Calling it quits?”
“How’re the birds going, Aaron?”
“Would you feel like coming home with me for a bite of supper?”
This last would be Nandina, who had her own private office, much bigger than mine, but somehow contrived, these days, to be standing in the outer room every evening as I walked through. “Oh,” I’d tell her, “I guess I’ll just head back to my place. But thanks.” Peggy would be twisting a lace-edged handkerchief as she gazed at me. Charles would be staring fixedly at his computer, his face a mottled red with embarrassment. Irene would sit back in her chair with her head cocked, gauging the extent of the damage.
“Night, all!” I would say.
And out the heavy oak door and into the street, safe at last.
Back home, I’d find offerings of food waiting on my front stoop. I believe my neighbors had arranged some sort of rotation system amongst themselves, although they were clearly overestimating my daily intake. There were foil baking tins and Styrofoam take-out boxes and CorningWare casserole dishes (which unfortunately would need washing and returning), all lined up in a row and plastered with strips of adhesive tape letting me know whom to thank. Thinking of you! The Ushers. And Bake uncovered at 350° till brown and bubbling, Mimi. I would unlock the front door and bend to maneuver it all inside. From there I conveyed the items one by one to the kitchen, leaving my cane behind whenever I needed both hands for something spillable. I set everything next to the sink before I began adding to the list I kept on the counter. A column of previous offerings nearly filled the page: Sue Borden—deviled eggs. Jan Miller—some kind of curry. The earliest names were crossed out to show I’d already sent thank-you notes to them.
I must remember to buy more stamps. I was using a good many, these days.
After I’d recorded each dish, I dumped it in the garbage. I hated to waste food, but my refrigerator was packed to the gills and I didn’t know what else to do. So the chicken salad, the ziti casserole, the tomatoes with pesto—dump, dump, dump. You could think of it as eliminating the middleman: straight from stoop to trash bin, without the intermediate pause on the kitchen table. Occasionally, abstractedly, I would intercept a drumstick or a sparerib and gnaw on it as I went about my work. While I rinsed out a Pyrex baking dish, I made my way through a cheesecake parked beside the sink, although I didn’t much like cheesecake and this one was getting slimier every time I reached for a chunk with my wet fingers. And then, all at once, I was stuffed and my teeth had that furred feel from eating too much sugar, even though I hadn’t sat down to an actual meal.
I dried the baking dish and set it out on the stoop with a Post-it attached: MIMI. Outside it was barely twilight, that transparent green kind of twilight you see at the end of a summer day, and I could hear children calling and a wisp of music from a passing car radio. I stepped back into the hall and closed the door.
Next, the mail, which shingled the hall floor and posed a hazard to life and limb every time I stepped over it. I gathered it all up and took it back to the kitchen. The kitchen was my living room now. I’d done nothing about my plans to alter the guest room. I used the table as my desk, with my checkbook and my address book and various stationery supplies arranged in a row across one end. Oh, I was keeping up with my responsibilities admirably! I paid my bills the day they arrived, not waiting for the due-dates. I promptly filed catalogues and fliers in the recycling bin. I opened every sympathy note and read it with the utmost care, because there was always the chance that somebody would give me an unexpected glimpse of my wife. Somebody from her workplace, for instance: Dr. Rosales was extremely qualified, and she will be missed at the Radiology Center. Well, that was an added viewpoint that I very much appreciated. Or a former patient: I was so sorry to read about the death of your your loss Dr. Rosales in the paper. She was very helpful to me after I had my mastecto surgery, answering all my questions and treating me so normally so ordinarily with dignity. I suspected that this was a first draft mailed by mistake, but that just made it all the more meaningful, because it revealed the patient’s sincerest feelings. She had valued the same qualities in Dorothy that I had valued: her matter-of-fact attitude, her avoidance of condescension. That was the Dorothy I’d fallen in love with.
I answered each note immediately.
Dear Dr. Adams,
Thank you so much for your letter. You were very kind to write.
Sincerely,
Aaron Woolcott
Dear Mrs. Andrews,
Thank you so much for your letter. You were very kind to write.
Sincerely,
Aaron Woolcott
Then on to the food brigade:
Dear Mimi,
Thank you so much for the ziti casserole. It was delicious.
Sincerely,
Aaron
Dear Ushers,
Thank you so much for the cheesecake. It was delicious.
Sincerely,
Aaron
After that, the housework. Plenty to keep me busy there.
Sweeping the front hall, first. That was unending. Every morning when I woke up and every evening when I came home, a fresh layer of white dust and plaster chips covered the hall floor. At times there were also tufts of matted gray fuzz. What on earth? An outmoded type of insulation, I decided. I stopped sweeping and peered up into the rafters. It was a sight I looked quickly away from, like someone’s innards.
And then the laundry, exactly twice a week—once for whites and once for colors. The first white load made me feel sort of lonely. It included two of Dorothy’s shirts and her sensible cotton underpants and her seersucker pajamas. I had to wash and dry and fold them and place them in the proper drawers and align the corners and pat them down and smooth them flat. But the loads after that were easier. This wasn’t an unfamiliar task, after all. It used to fall to whichever one of us felt the need of fresh clothing first, and that was most often me. Now I liked going down the stairs to the cool, dim basement, where there wasn’t the least little sign of the oak tree. Sometimes I hung around for a while after I’d transferred the wet laundry from the washer to the dryer, resting my palms on the dryer’s top and feeling it vibrate and grow warm.
Then a bit of picking up in the kitchen and the bedroom. Nothing major. Dorothy had been the clutterer in our family. By now I had retrieved several pieces of her clothing from around the room, and I’d returned her comb and her hay-fever pills to the medicine cabinet. I made no attempt to discard things. Not yet.
