The Widow’s Husband

by Sheila Evans

  Smile while somebody buys Frieda’s wheelless wheelbarrow, the rusty gas barbecue, some clay pots. Smile while someone else buys the gas cans, the camper shell, the snow tires. Smile bagging up Emmett’s clothes, his salmon pink button-down, his matching paisley tie, his denim suit, oh, his denim suit! still in its plastic from the cleaner’s. Smiling, although stricken, I turn away, don’t want to watch his denim suit go home with someone else. However, I marked it at an exorbitant price, almost what the silver dress is going to cost. But not the pinecone earrings; I’m crazy if I pay what that antique shop is asking for them, but I think I’m going to do it.

  A woman comes to me with his embroidered denim shirt, and I grab it away. “Sorry. That’s not for sale.”

  “But it was over there on that table,” she says. She’s wearing a huge gray sweatshirt with cutoff sleeves. It spells out B.U.M. across breasts as big as bowling balls, and I wonder why anyone her age and shape would wear such a thing. “It’s just what Brandon’s been lookin’ for, for Halloween,” she says.

  “Didn’t you hear me? It’s not for sale. Someone put it out by mistake. Go find something else, there’s plenty of other stuff.” Gripping the shirt, I slam into the house. Before the door closes, I hear, “Well, if she’s not the rudest … come on, Betty Ann, put that back, these people are nuts …”

  The kitchen seems dim and cool, and blessedly quiet, and I stand for a minute, remembering how I worked on this shirt, Emmett’s embroidered denim shirt. We’d gone camping at Calaveras Big Trees, Emmett and Amy and I. While Emmett and Amy explored a tiny creek, so small it was merely a series of puddles upon which water spiders danced, I sat in the shade and stitched. I was happy that day, a pooling kind of happiness, thick and sweet as honey. For me, all the pieces came together that day, as I sat under that … what kind of tree was it? I can’t remember, think maybe a sugar pine, the kind that sheds cones a foot long and the sun-baked bark smells sweet when you sniff deep in its ridges.

  I watched them, my husband and daughter, while embroidering Emmett’s denim shirt. It was the wildest design yet. It had to be wild to make it stand out because Pfaff had come out with a machine that did embroidery and I wanted to make sure everybody knew his shirt had been done by hand. I sewed him rows of mushrooms down the placket, and dotted them with rich red lady-bugs, satin-stitched black spots on their backs. Ivy scrolled along the yoke; butterflies flitted along the ivy. I used threads of variegated shadings; and metallic threads, hard to work with, and expensive. I threw the book at this shirt, used French knots, featherstitches, snake and chain stitches, satin stitches, honeycomb stitches. I went all out. Maybe too far, because Emmett had rarely worn it. But then again, this was toward the end of the embroidered denim shirt craze, and he moved on to a western look. Still, I can’t sell this shirt, and I drape it on the back of a chair to keep it from that weird cheapskate mob outside.

  Back at my post, I notice the garage is heating up, but the crowd thins after ten-thirty. Most of the camping gear is gone, and the hardware, the garden tools. But not the stubborn weed eater. Why doesn’t someone buy it? I’ve been kicking tires on a replacement, a user-friendly model, in a nursery out on the frontage road, The Garden Spot. “The G Spot—we know how to make you happy” reads its card in small print, with a wink and a nudge.

  In the lull Mr. Purdy pulls up a chair beside me in the back of the garage. “See? I told ya,” he says. “Lord, this is fun.”

  “Glad you think so.”

  “You don’t?”

  “It’s embarrassing. Sitting out here surrounded by my own hoarded goods, my lapses in judgement, my discards in full view, in daylight. Like sitting in my underwear, I’m exposed. I keep thinking, am I doing the right thing? Wholesaling Emmett out like this? Maybe I should wait.”

  “He’s not coming back.”

  “I know that. Well, part of me knows it. The other part of me wants to protect his belongings, keep them safe. Make a shrine of them.” That denim shirt in the house … but that’s a shrine to me, not him.

  I find myself resenting how he spent our money. His collection of cashmere, the MALONE beer stein. His dress-up junk, and his assortments of flashlights, wallets, and Dixieland records and tapes. Nobody bought any of the Dixieland. Someone did spring for the Riverdance videos. I put out the pen and pencil set from his desk at work, then took it in again. My gift to myself. The kind of thing people give at graduation. I’m the one graduating.

  “I went through the same thing when my Millie died.”

  “Did you have a garage sale?”

  “No, I was too worn out to deal with it right then. She’d been sick a long time, and I’d been, how do they put it? main caregiver. Plum tuckered, I was. Donated everything to the church. Anyway, she woulda liked that, she was a church person. My Millie, she taught me everything I know about garage sales. She could sell a coffee can full of bent nails for a buck. Tie a ribbon around a pile of rags, call ’em ‘treated polish cloths’ or some damn fool thing, and get three dollars for it. She was queen of the rummage sale. Usually held ’em in the basement of the church. The ladies would serve up lunch or tea and coffee and pie, charge for that, too. Fundraiser. My Millie’d organize the whole shootin’ match, she was never nuthin’ but a housewife, no fancy education, but she shoulda been in business, in sales or promotion or whatever. Yeah, she was the best.” He draws a sigh. “How ’bout you?”

  “Oh, my Emmett—” I blush. He’d never been “my” Emmett. He’d been his own person, had belonged to no one but himself. “My Emmett, he worked in business but he wasn’t a businessman, didn’t enjoy it. He should have been an architect. He wanted to study it; closest he got was a design class in junior college, a glorified woodshop class where most of the guys were hiding from the draft. His folks pushed him into this work-with-your-hands stuff, they wanted him to have something practical, a sure skill he could count on, make a living with. See, his dad was a failed painter, didn’t want that to happen to Emmett. But Emmett did okay with what he learned in woodshop. Over there on the workbench? The projects he was working on. A bird feeder, a picture frame, flagpole assembly.”

  “No, I meant you. What were your goals, your dreams?”

  I try to think what I’d ever wanted, besides Emmett. Early on, though, I knew he was the withholding sort; so hadn’t I set myself up, right off the bat? I see that that’s true. All those years I concentrated on Emmett, trying to take him over, make him over, when I should have been working on myself. “Me? Oh, I suppose I’d have liked more children.” That’s a lie, but I have to say something.

  I glance over at Amy at her card table, which she’s moved so she can sit in the sun under a coating of lemon-scented sun block. She’s reading a paperback from my twenty-five cent table: Margaret Atwood’s Edible Woman. She probably picked it up thinking it a diet book—I once used to read such things. Amy worried all week about putting on weight because of the lunches I bought us. To compound it, she hasn’t worked out with her “fatties,” and misses them and her routines. I told her she looked good with a little extra padding, which was a mistake, because she turned her mouth down in a sour grimace, the same kind I used to get from Emmett. Well, at least I won’t have to look at him wearing that expression anymore!

  “Do you have children?” I’d never heard a word about his family.

  “Nope. No kids. No tragedy, that. See, Millie was the oldest of twelve, she’d had enough of kids, she didn’t care. Besides, like I said, she wasn’t your typical happy homemaker. Shoulda been in business. She kept the books for people, worked on their income tax, did other stuff like organize the church bazaar, the bake sales. Had the parking lot at the church set up for folks to sell produce. Used to be a lot of little farms around, couple of acres that people’d plant to crops like pears, cherries, walnuts, and of course corn, melons, and tomatoes. Oh, and they sold fresh eggs, herbs, cut flowers, crafts stuff—potholders, planters, decorations. My Millie had everybody signed up, plots marked out.”
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  “I can’t imagine this area being agricultural.”

  Just then a battered car swoops up. All four doors open and what looks like a dozen people spill out and troop up the driveway. “Hola, senora,” calls the driver. “Como esta? Esta bien?”

  “Si, muy bien,” I answer. “Que tal?”

  When he answers back with a barrage of Spanish, I throw up my hands and laugh.

  He laughs, too. “Is okay. We learn the English at night school. Everything cool.”

  Mr. Purdy steps forward, points out to the men what bargains, what splendid possibilities are being offered, what adventures to be had with … a bench grinder? a vise? an extension cord? He’s taken the measure of these folks, and he knows. He’s pushing tools, camping gear, the last of the tarps. The women move into my territory and sift through and buy clothes, mostly Emmett’s—shirts, ties, a paisley vest, shoes, jackets. “Is good stuff,” says a woman juggling a baby. They buy Amy’s discarded make-up, nail polish, and workout suits. They buy Frieda’s ceramic pots, kitchen goods, my jeans.

  “Is best sale yet,” says a man, smiling, showing white teeth in his dark face.

  Amy takes their money, and helps carry out goods to a car already packed with other garage sale buys. After these people leave, there’s another lull, a deeper one. A few neighborhood snoops stop in to size up the extent of my tragedy. Garage sales are signs of tragedy, Mr. Purdy says. Either that or of a shifting of the ground. He gives these casual pedestrians a once-over, then doesn’t bother going out to talk to them. Finally, around 11:30, the three of us, Mr. Purdy, Amy, and I, retreat to the deep cool of the garage. PawPaw reappears—he’d run off when strangers started arriving—and jumps up on Mr. Purdy’s lap. He’d become his friend while Amy and I were gone. This annoys Amy, but she’s nice about it.

  “Well, this is dead,” says Amy. “What are we going to do for four more hours?”

  “It’ll pick up after lunch,” Mr. Purdy says. “It’s always like this. After lunch, the Seventh Day Adventists come around, and the folks tied up with chores this morning.” He talks about other garage sales he’d either been to or his Millie had put on. In reminiscence, or fatigue—he’d probably gotten up as early as I had, and maybe he hadn’t been able to sleep, either—his voice drops until he’s murmuring as if only to himself. Air tankers from Travis drone overhead, drowning him out. I lose the thread of his conversation, fall to reminiscing … how Emmett used to drive out to Suisun City to watch the Air Force’s Big Birds practice take-offs and landings, aluminum giants floating through the air like feathers. I thought it was boring, sitting there on the edge of the airfield, but put it down to some lack on my part. Now I think it was boring.

  At noon Frieda halloos across the street, asks if we can stop for lunch. Clutching a bag lunch and a six-pack of Cokes, she clumps up the driveway in platform sandals—just looking at them makes my feet hurt. She’s wearing a yellow knit top and white shorts. Amy exclaims over the top, which surprises me. It’s just a tee shirt. Frieda chirps that Splurge, the shop where I found that silver dress, has tees on sale, summer clearance. I’ll have to check it out on Monday. Maybe my silver dress is on sale, too. My fairytale silver dress, although it’s not fancy; it’s plain in design, bordering on severe. A sort of sheath dress, cut on the bias, so it doesn’t hang, but drapes the body. Very good on me, I think, with my new flat belly. A deceptively simple dress that begs for pinecone earrings.

  Frieda presents lunch—ham and turkey sandwiches, and a tuna for Amy. She hands out Cokes, and gingerbread squares with a lemon glaze. A thank-you for letting her piggyback into our garage sale. She sits with us while we eat, the four of us pulling chairs deeper into the garage.

  Mr. Purdy comes to life, with Frieda. He sparkles, his voice takes on a fresh timbre; he’s jokey, jovial. As if he’s never before eaten lunch with a yellow top and white shorts. Never had such a feast packed for him. He pushes PawPaw off his lap so he can engage fully with his food. Frieda lavishes compliments for his success—he’s sold all her stuff—and he expounds on his garage sale philosophy. The perfect time of year, he says. The fruit pickers are in town; people are back from vacation waiting for school to start. Everyone’s bored and lazy, stricken with summertime doldrums. Yeah, yeah, I think sourly. Tell me something else I don’t know: he’d already said the same things to me.

  He exclaims continually over his turkey sandwich, as earlier he’d exclaimed over my apple pie. It’s the perfect turkey sandwich, with mayo, lettuce, pepper. How had Frieda known to put mayo, lettuce, pepper on a turkey sandwich, he asks. Because, I think, you always put mayo, lettuce, and pepper on turkey sandwiches, to cover up how dry they are otherwise.

  He effuses over the gingerbread—his favorite, he says; he loves gingerbread. I think that he has no judgement, either. It’s obviously from a package mix because there’s a chemical undertaste. If he wants gingerbread, I fume, if he’s so hot for gingerbread, why hadn’t he said something? I’d have made him a shit load of gingerbread, the old coot, the old geezer.

  I boil with jealousy as Mr. Purdy effervesces into Frieda’s face, which is turned toward his like a flower to the sun. Then I am struck by my own neediness, to react like this! What is the matter with me! But I continue to suffer waves of envy and possessiveness. Frieda is going to take Mr. Purdy away from me, and I have just discovered him for myself. It’s Providence that sent him, and I don’t want it messed with. But what’s the use? There will always be a Frieda, and I’ll never catch up at this rate, never be able to transmit creamy looks such as Frieda gives Mr. Purdy; it’s all over, there’s no hope. Anyway, I’m tired of this whole thing. That’s it in a nutshell, I’m tired. All the while I think this, my balloon face is painted with a smile.

  Lunch over, Frieda collects the trash and stuffs it in a bag by the door. She stretches in what I consider a provocative manner, then says she has to get home. She minces down the driveway, balancing on her platforms. On the backs of her legs are impressions of the chair’s plastic webbing. I wonder if Mr. Purdy is watching her, too; I throw him a look, and see that he is. At least his face is pointed that way. He’s thinking she’s better looking than I am, I muse, and I set to work gathering the beginning of a sticky gray funk around me, like a collapsed parachute.

  Then Mr. Purdy says, “Those last guys wanted to buy the tow bar, and maybe I should’a sold it to them.”

  “Why didn’t you?” So he wasn’t thinking about Frieda!

  “Because earlier a fellow said he wanted it, he’d be back this afternoon with the money. I said I’d save it for him.”

  “Did he put anything down, to hold it?”

  “No, he didn’t. He told me a sob story, his wife’s got cancer and he needs the tow bar to get them back to Missouri, where they got family to help out. Shoot! I almost gave him the tow bar. It was probably all lies.”

  “It’s early yet. Maybe he’ll be back.”

  “Well, if he don’t show, I’m out a hundred bucks. But cancer, see, I know cancer. It’s what got my Millie. I know what it’s like watching your wife fail.”

  He describes Millie’s slow descent, a once vigorous and energetic woman reduced to using a cane, then a walker, finally a wheelchair, before being bedridden. Along the way she’d been subjected to various surgeries, unspeakable dismemberments—she’d had cancer of the uterus that spread to her breasts, her lungs, her spine, finally settling in her brain. Towards the end, not knowing who he was, she lay there in the hospital full of wires and tubes; bald of any hair including eyebrows and lashes, dried out as a bundle of sticks, no better than a living—if you call that living—skeleton. I mumble sympathetic comments. I consider this opening up to be his gift to me. To be worthy of it, I put aside my pique.

  I’d like to tell him about the shock of finding Emmett dead in our bed, his skin that odd gray color, the blood dark on the pillowcase. Cordovan brown blood, dead; menstrual blood. I threw out the linen. The rest—blankets, pillows, spread—was in this sale, a
nd the Mexicans bought it. I want to tell Mr. Purdy how glad I was to see it go away. I can’t tell him, or anyone, about that ashy little rosebud nestled in the gray of Emmett’s pubic hair, an image that still haunts me. I’ll say nothing; in spite of the shock, horror, and disbelief that Emmett’s death left me with, my ordeal had been quick and merciful compared to his Millie’s lingering misery.

  The mailman jeeps around the corner. He stops and has to get out to stuff mail in our cluster of boxes—I’d parked the Bronco on the street, to free up the driveway. “Oh, sorry about that,” I call, getting up to collect my delivery.

  “Good day for a garage sale,” he says, smiling, holding out my mail. He’s wearing summer issue shorts, blue-gray, with a stripe up the sides, and I stare at his legs. Nice legs; curvy, good color, not too hairy.

  “Yeah, we’ve had a real turnout.”

  I never paid much attention to him before; imagined, for some reason, his name was Vern or Ernie, something anonymous for an anonymous guy. But I see now that he’s pleasant looking—tall, thin, with a long, thin face. A beaky nose, but I like it. A no-nonsense nose, one you wouldn’t mistake for a turnip or a doorknob or an elbow. I smile at him, a real smile, it washes over my face like the tide coming in … then I catch myself … what am I doing! Flirting with the mailman! Ogling his legs! Another sign of my neediness. What the hell do I need! Not sex, surely not sex. Well, for starters, I need a man to smile back at me, to approve of me, to like me. Just as I am, no holding back. But it’s not that simple—if that’s simple. I need to be important to a man, to count, to come first. Had I come first, with Emmett? Maybe in some ways, but he’d been inaccessible; the part of him I’d wanted and needed had been off-limits. He’d denied me what would have made him “my” Emmett, the way Mr. Purdy’s Millie had been “his” Millie. Now, it’s too late, I’ll never have that fundamental piece I’d needed so badly.