The Widow’s Husband

by Sheila Evans

  Her near nudity reminds me of niggling concerns, makes me ask, “Amy, are you all right?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You weren’t here last night when I went to bed … I worried about you.”

  “Jeez, I can take care of myself. What do you think I do at home?”

  “At home you’ve got your … equipment,” I say, making a stab at delicacy. “Here, I don’t know how prepared you are.”

  “Don’t worry about it, okay?” Amy sighs, yawns, stretches again, and I look away but not before realizing she has a blurred, fuzzy, out-of-focus aura. It isn’t just smeared makeup and mused hair, it’s something else, a palpable presence of sex in the room. Oh, yeah, sex, sex, and I am on my guard, uneasy about it, although my mind stops short of defining, of accepting, of imagining what it is that I fear.

  Later she continues to irritate me with unfocused attention while we eat a breakfast sandwich on the snack bar’s porch—the Inn’s dining room doesn’t open until noon. She also irritates me by pulling the ham slice out of her sandwich and throwing it away. I want to snap, For God’s sake! You’re so damned pure—an unsullied vegetarian! That animal is dead, it gave up its life for you, and you’re wasting it. But I can’t say that. I can’t, I shouldn’t, comment on Amy’s idealism, besmirch it with my pragmatism. That’s what Emmett had done, and it had driven her wild.

  As wild as I now feel burdened with Amy’s befuddlement. Okay, she’s love-struck. Wasn’t I the same after my first date with Emmett? I must have been ecstatic, although I can’t remember where we’d gone, what we’d done, how it ended. In fact, I feel some ancient unease around the subject. What had happened? Did I lose my purse? Stumble and fall? Expose an unacceptable opinion? I can’t remember.

  In glowing terms, Amy describes Jake, the handsome new guy. Gentle, soft-spoken, silky mannered: he’s a glaring contrast to Larry, whom she now realizes is a jerk. Larry wouldn’t do at all; she sees the error of her ways, her lack of perception, of judgement.

  I’m only half-listening, my mind still occupied with Emmett. While he was in Vietnam, and we were corresponding, I’d had a couple of lukewarm boyfriends. But I rushed home from a coffee date, or a class at the junior college, or my part-time job at the telephone company, to check the mail for a letter from Emmett. A letter from him made my day, although it could be, usually was (I admitted to myself, but not to my mother), a boring missive, poorly written, sometimes carelessly scribbled in pencil.

  He wrote too much about missing local social events that meant nothing to me—the Crawdad Festival in Isleton, the Pear Fair in Courtland. (I thought he wasn’t missing crawdads and pears as much as the wild parties that went with them.) He missed sailing the South Tower Race, and, oh, the music scene. He bitterly resented being left out of the revival of Dixieland that was going on in Old Sacramento. He longed for a sweet combo—trumpet, trombone, clarinet, banjo, and tuba—guys in shiny suits and striped vests and top hats, swinging through the narrow streets of the historic district, wowing the crowd with “Mississippi Mud” or “When the Saints Come Marching In.” He could practically taste the sweetness of a Jelly Roll Morton stomp, a Scott Joplin ragtime, “Chrysanthemum” or “Maple Leaf Rag” or “The Entertainer.” In my return letters, I wrote about my music, Herb Alpert, the Doobie Brothers, Sergio Mendes, until Emmett let on that he considered them schlock; then I went hardcore: The Doors, Santana. He liked them almost as much as Dixieland. He grieved deeply over the deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimmy Hendricks, whom I considered no great loss.

  Nevertheless, none of that mattered when I got a letter from him, when I first tore into it as if it were Christmas and I was five years old. A magic letter from Emmett, which I read greedily, rushing through the text looking for … what had I been looking for? What had I been expecting? Poetry? Like that doggerel in his desk folder?

  I’d take one quick dash through his scribbles, scanning for that elusive something. Then I’d reread slowly, aware of vague disappointment, even anger. Was this facile document the return on the investment of my own careful prose, as full of grace and wit, as full of interesting news that I could make it? Then a third or a fourth reading … and I found hope, I found, I created, deep and passionate thoughts in his airy paragraphs, and I took up my pen again, reassured. Had he ever appreciated my efforts? He’d never said so, but he must have enjoyed my letters, because he came home to me; there he was, gleaming and golden in the porch light when I opened the door of my parents’ house. If he hadn’t enjoyed hearing from me, if my letters hadn’t engaged him in some manner, he’d have appeared on someone else’s step, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he?

  New traitorous thought: could that misleading, perhaps empty, correspondence have been emblematic of our marriage? For years, Emmett did the best he could, he tried to please me, as I tried to please him. Had he sensed that I needed something more from him, something more than he was prepared or equipped to give? Impatient, demanding, I tore into the marriage as I’d torn into his letters, and found nothing there. In response, he tried to shield himself from my disappointment, but the lack of fusion between us had frustrated us both. Could that be true? Oh, yes, in some subtle manner, we’d let each other down.

  By this time Amy and I have finished eating, and we stand, brush at crumbs, wad our trash into a barrel, and head down the path toward the cabin.

  “Isn’t it fascinating how people get together?” Amy says. “Whoever would have thought I’d come here to meet Jake? It’s like fate. Do you believe in fate?”

  “No.”

  “What do you believe in?”

  “Willy-nilly circumstance, chance, the luck of the draw, balanced by a certain amount of control.”

  “Control!”

  “Yeah, you’ve got to use your head. Find out if you’re compatible with this person. Are your backgrounds the same? Your core values? You can’t let your hormones run wild. You’ve got to use your brain, both sides of it. Learn about the person, see if he’s someone you can live with.”

  “Like you did with Dad.”

  I’m appalled at what I’m telling her. I haven’t a clue. What I am sure of is I thought I studied Emmett, knew him, his tastes, his needs, his desires. Now I realize I hadn’t known anything about him except superficialities—how he liked his clothes folded, what to put in his meatloaf. The trouble was I’d been too infatuated with him from the start, and had never known him as a friend. If anything, he’d been an adversary I tried to overcome with distractions like blueberry pancakes, devilled eggs with mustard powder. I brought about my own downfall by never arguing, never contradicting, never ignoring him; by never showing any spirit. Emmett would have liked spirit, spunk, vivacity, such as Maggie Quinn in his office had no doubt provided.

  I sigh, then kick at a weed growing up through the gravel on the trail. It’s true, he wanted a display of grit, spirit, enough playful struggle to define himself against, and I hadn’t given it to him. Against my will, in naked perversely, one of his damn poems surfaces in my traitor of a mind:

  The work-week world, white noise—mere blips,

  A brown-bag lunch, sandwich and chips.

  The orders filled, the paycheck earned,

  My time is bought, but nothing’s learned.

  Then home, a prison, more white noise,

  Vanilla sweetness clogs, then cloys.

  I’m trapped, I’m tamed, subdued, milk-mild,

  I itch, I ache for something wild.

  He’d wanted passion, adventure; he’d wanted drama, mystery; he’d even wanted fights. Like that night I careened off and slept behind the bank. He admired that, he’d tacitly approved, welcomed that contest of wills. Afterward he related the episode to his buddies, slyly adding his own details until the story took on a significance lacking in the real event. I became, in his telling of it, a headstrong wench, a hellion. I developed, in his wishful tale, the exact characteristics I am not only afraid of displaying, but am incapable of.

 
Suddenly my blood boils, I am overcome with anger. That damned man! What the hell had he wanted! Hadn’t he known that he needed something I couldn’t provide? Of course he’d known that; he’d been no dummy … but then, he’d been no genius, either. A middlin’ guy, trudging along, running the shipping department in that furniture factory. Just an ordinary man, such as men are.

  Then I consider another aspect of that sordid sleep-behind-the-bank caper. Would I have left him if I’d realized there were only so many nights left in his life span, or in mine, to sleep together? I wasted that night, used it up in plotting how to get him back for objecting to Amy’s birth control pills.

  Shit. Where does this sentimental claptrap come from! One less night of sleeping with him … out of over eight thousand … and I’m regretting one? Even when I was there, we rolled over, turned our backs to each other, we coiled into our separate dreams. The truth I’m avoiding is that we’d long ago finished each other off. We read while eating dinner, him a newspaper—his end of my table had been black with newsprint—me a novel. Watched TV on separate sets. But isn’t that always the case? Does a long-term marriage always develop in lockstep? Isn’t there always growth, change? Well, Emmett grew, he changed. Now it’s my turn.

  Amy yawns. I realize she’d gotten little sleep last night; plus, she retreats into pseudo boredom when I get too close, or become preachy.

  “What do you want to do today, Mom? Any preference?” By this time, we’d reached the cabin, are sitting on the porch in a patch of sun.

  “Let’s drive over to the coast, see the ocean. Scout around for someplace else to grab a bite for dinner. That Inn, I’m not up for it again. Soggy pasta—did you notice how everything tasted the same under the tomato sauce and cheese? And those silly games.”

  “You don’t want to meet Jake?” She adds slyly, “You don’t want to meet your friend from the bar?”

  “No on both counts.”

  Her grin is malicious. “You were hoping for the Silver Fox, weren’t you?”

  My face burns, but I say stiffly, “Let’s go see the ocean, talk about dinner later.”

  Amy pulls out of the parking lot and points her Mustang toward the coast. The road is the sort AAA labels “Other, surface not known.” It is, however, a fine road, a narrow black ribbon of asphalt twisting through the green blur of forest rushing by us on both sides. I think sadly that there are no real back roads left in California.

  Nevertheless, I feel called upon to say, “Slow down. You can’t see joggers around these curves. Or bicyclists.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Her standard answer to any critique of her driving. But she does slow down, and then goes on with this tiresome rhapsody, this tedious description of her evening with her new friend, “… so we left because it got so smoky in there …” I hear her say.

  “But Amy, no one was smoking—it’s against the law. Besides, you used to smoke. And you lived with a smoker.”

  “Yeah, but I could smell it. I’m tired of cigarette smoke. Jake and I went for a walk. The woods, Mom, the fresh clear air in the woods, you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Why wouldn’t I believe it? Yesterday I went for a hike myself, while you took a nap. But you weren’t out walking all night. What did you do then?” I glance at Amy to see if she’ll accept this intrusion. If I push, Amy will bristle or turn silent. Just as her father had. But she is dreamy, beguiled, living her own fantasy. Poor girl. In her own tough modern way, Amy is as defenseless, as vulnerable and susceptible as I’d been.

  But she answers blandly. “We got to talking, you know how it is. When it turned cold, we went back to his room in the Inn, no point in disturbing you.” She swivels her sly blue gaze away from me.

  “Are those rooms nice?”

  “Um … no, they’re not as good as our cabin. Clattery hardwood floors, high ceilings, drafty. Bathroom down the hall.”

  “At those prices, you don’t get a private bath?”

  “He’s in an economy unit. He’s going through a bad divorce, his ex is taking him to the cleaners.”

  “Oh, no, Amy—”

  “I’m not going to marry him, fer chrissake! He’s got kids! This is just for fun, no strings.”

  She goes on about what a controlling bitch the ex-wife is, how unfair and unjust the divorce laws. I bite back comments, tell myself to stay out of it, hold my tongue, let it pass.

  The blue sky whitens, as if diluted with milk. Then it dissolves into a layer of fog that envelops the road. The edging of trees is replaced by low growth stunted and slanted by wind; then even small trees yield to scrub. The air, now chilled, holds a tang of salt, a cutting sharpness. I interrupt Amy’s recital of Jake’s ex-wife’s contrary behaviors to say, “You’re cold. I told you to dress warmer.” Amy’s bare legs are goose-bumped, and under her tan her skin has a reddish tinge.

  “Mom, if I don’t complain, why should you?” she snaps, looking pointedly at my jeans and sweater.

  “I know,” I say contritely, “I nag, don’t I?”

  “No, you’re right, I’m cold, but I’ll live.”

  By now we’ve dropped into a different climate zone. The white air contains a sharp mix of sea salt and seaweed, algae and chlorophyll. I can almost taste the extra ions in the atmosphere. The Mustang passes over the rolling crest of a hill and there lies the flat gray-white expanse of the Pacific Ocean, spread out like a sheet of crinkled aluminum foil. Amy turns south onto the main highway, saying, “I’ll give you the ocean on your side.” Then she adds, “Later we can grab a bowl of clam chowder in Bodega Bay, okay?”

  I murmur something while staring out the window at the advance and retreat of white-edged rollers. The sea, I think, our picayune difficulties dissolve while contemplating the energy of the ocean. How insignificant, how puny—

  “You want to walk on the beach?” her voice interrupts me. “Can those shoes take a little sand?”

  “Yes, walk on the beach. Sand, no problem. How about you, are you going to be too cold?”

  A three-syllable “Mot th er!” just as she’d done when she was five.

  She pulls abruptly into a state beach lot, making the guy behind her honk. “How about this stretch? I think they’re all pretty much alike.”

  We park, lock, and Amy stows the keys in her fanny pack. “You want to leave your purse?”

  “Uh, car clouts? Amy, I read somewhere that guys watch you with binoculars, see where you stash your purse, then break in when you leave.”

  “Mo th er,” again three syllables.

  “I can’t help it,” I say, hooking my purse strap over a shoulder. “I never thought about money so much before, but—”

  “I know what you’re going to say. Don’t worry, you won’t have to front me a loan.”

  “Amy, no—”

  She leads me down a gravel path through low rubbery shrubs, then out onto the shingle. “Tell me about your first date with Dad.”

  “I’m still trying remember it.” I’m laboring ankle deep in dry sand.

  The beach itself is not wide and flat, but narrowed by high tide, and haphazardly strewn with boulders, as if tossed about by a giant negligent hand. An interesting beach rather than a pleasant one. The going is tough, and I begin to have second thoughts about this particular expanse.

  But Amy has no doubts, and pushes ahead. I follow her, picking my way through rocks now shell-encrusted, to a dark ribbon of hard-packed sand. Here, the walking is easier, and we edge along the surf, judging where to stay dry as lapping waves uncurl in a line of foam. Over the roar of water, I say loudly, “I suppose it doesn’t matter where we went, but now that he’s gone, I want to remember—”

  “Like I want to remember everything about Jake.” Over the noise of the sea, I hear, “… so what if Jake was late getting home that night … she’d changed the locks … threw his stuff out on the lawn … then attached his wages … never mind what he has to have to live on … court ordered by the judge …”

  Then I hear, “�
� seen the writing on the wall and moved his assets …”

  I interrupt, “He hid assets?”

  “Mom, only things that were his, rightfully. A coin collection, a stamp album his father left him, stock in his company.”

  In my silence, in which Amy no doubt hears disapproval, she goes on, “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Doesn’t sound right to me, either. The kind of thing you can’t imagine Dad doing. Dad was a straight shooter, you know?”

  I make vague non-responses, then say, “This must be a common thing, hiding assets. So when it blows up, you can get out.” Never mind my own secret account at the sleep-behind bank. Nickels and dimes.

  Amy rattles on, dissecting the male personality, and I listen with only half an ear, preoccupied, distracted, distressed. I am torn: I yearn to tell Amy about the missing stock, but I can’t sour Emmett’s memory for her. Isn’t it my duty to keep it unsullied? At least for Amy? That’s my best course; nothing would make any difference anyway.

  Is it a rule or a law that all women, when they’re alone, talk of men? Do men, by themselves, talk of women? From what I overheard of Emmett’s conversations, I think not. He talked sports, weather, cars, road conditions, problems at work, what’s on sale at Ace Hardware, the state budget, the national scene. However, Amy and I are discussing Jake, or Amy is discussing Jake, while I listen.

  But then again, what could I, or should I, discuss with Amy? Pinecone earrings, silk dresses, silver highlights for my hair? No, and not because those things aren’t important (and maybe they’re not), but because they are simply beside the point.

  We reach a small creek that bubbles through a great mass of boulders, braiding itself into a delta before twisting into the sea. It appears to be at least knee deep. To cross it, we’ll have to get wet. We stand for a minute watching the ragged tumult of water. The sound of the surf, at this juncture of creek and sea, becomes a dull persistent roar, like a waterfall, or the stubborn rumble of traffic on the Interstate. Not hectic rush hour commuter traffic, but the continuous drone of early morning, or late evening vehicles traveling at a steady clip.