The Young Widower's Handbook

by Tom McAllister

  Hunter listens to Paul’s breathing, a slight rattle on his inhalations, as if his larynx has come loose and needs to be screwed back into place. Austin shuffles his feet and cracks his knuckles constantly. Someone tries to take a picture of nothingness, and the guide asks everyone to please stop taking pictures. Just exist in the tranquility for a moment, he says. The mucky ground seems to rise around them as if to suck them down into the earth. Hunter itches away the feeling of bugs on his arms, his neck. A clump of dirt shakes loose from the ceiling and lands on his shoulder. The subterranean chill is like being submerged in a grave. Kait’s absence throbs in his head.

  The lights flick back on, and the relief is palpable. Nearly everyone pulls cell phones out of their pockets to check for missed calls or to add a little more light to the cave. Hunter’s phone tells him he has received four e-mails so far today. Tossing peanuts in his mouth as they leave, Austin says he thinks he heard a bat’s sonar when they were in the dark. Paul, moving stiffly, says, “Well, I’m never doing that again.”

  IN THE PARK’S PICNIC area, they purchase sandwiches and sit at a bench to eat them, Amber and Austin across from the two widowers. Austin eats amiably, gesturing with his sandwich to make points while talking, offering his potato chips to everyone, seeming to find joy in the acts of chewing and swallowing. Loud smacking and chewing, one of Kait’s pet peeves, admittedly unpleasant, but not ill-intentioned. Amber is a nibbler. This sandwich could last her all day if Austin weren’t here. Her teeth are shockingly white, so white they look new, a stark contrast to her tanned face. She leans down over the table to bite into her sandwich, as if dipping into a trough, her hair falling down over her face, a blonde veil. Paul grinds his food, works methodically. Overhead there are exactly zero clouds. Birds of prey circle above, a prodigious sight, their massive wingspans unfurled, none of the frantic flapping of a sparrow, the talons that seem, even from afar, large enough to lift Hunter and carry him away.

  Amber passes half her sandwich to Austin, who acts as the group’s garbage disposal. She asks Hunter what he’s reading, and he says it’s an e-mail from Kait.

  “When’s the last time you saw her?” Amber asks.

  “A while.” Almost two months, almost three thousand miles.

  “What about your families? Are they upset you’re leaving?”

  “Nah, we don’t really get along with her side,” he says. “Part of the reason for the move. And my parents have a summer house in LA, so they’ll come visit.”

  “So at least you’ve got somebody out there.”

  “Yeah, my dad works a lot but we see him sometimes. And my mom and Kait, they’re like best friends, basically.” Paul finishes his sandwich, excuses himself for a short walk.

  “Yeah, we’re lucky too,” Amber says, and launches into a story about how she and Austin both mesh well in each other’s families, how lucky they are to get along with their future in-laws, and Hunter stops listening once he realizes she only asked about his life as a pretense to talk about hers.

  “I don’t think I could leave all my friends behind,” Austin says, interrupting Amber.

  “I’ll have the band eventually. Most of my friends from home, I lost touch with them anyway.” Hunter crumbles up his sandwich wrapper and tosses it toward a nearby trashcan, watches it rim out and land in the dirt. “It happens after college. Everyone gets distracted.”

  Austin says that’s not going to happen to him and his friends, even though Hunter knows it has happened to every group of college friends that has ever existed. Hunter somewhat admires Austin’s naïve optimism, even though he knows one day Austin is going to be tossed headfirst into the real world and find out that things end all the time without first asking permission. He tries to listen while refreshing his e-mail in hopes of an update on his house, which he knows is probably rotting now and needs to be saved soon if it’s to be saved at all.

  THE NEXT MORNING, IN Prescott Valley, Arizona, Paul spreads the map out on the bed before taking a walk. While Austin and Amber attack the map with a marker, Hunter thinks again about the explorers who walked off the edge of the known world into new territories and mapped them. Everything on the planet, above the sea anyway, has been discovered, explored and analyzed, but what does that mean for him? Even though others have already seen everything before he has, he doesn’t know anything about it. He’s still charging through the curtains of his own limited experience into unfamiliar territory, filling in the blank spaces, because how can he know anything about anything until he’s seen it for himself? And so he thinks maybe that what Kait wanted out of travel wasn’t to broaden her mind or to find herself or any of that stuff; what she wanted was to be with Hunter, but in different places. She wanted to see the sights, but the real impetus was her love for him and her desire to share as wide a variety of experiences as possible. Or maybe what she wanted was for them to record the nuances of the earth together, because their map would be totally different from any other in existence, just like the unique map Austin and Amber are creating together. They could invent a universe that belonged exclusively to them. The world that is unveiling itself to Hunter on this trip, the world he is creating for himself, is desolate and pointless and not all that remarkable. But to explore together, to fill a globe with shared experiences and personal landmarks—not museums, but picnic tables where they had a romantic lunch, not goofy tourist attractions, but memories of the night they discovered a quaint neighborhood café in a European village—is to make meaning where there was no meaning before. What she wanted, he thinks, was for them to have that sense of discovery Amber and Austin have, to be oblivious to the reality that by virtue of the existence of maps and pamphlets and public restrooms and long lines, their vacations are not unique but are in fact mass manufactured. But then again, maybe not, because it’s the first time these two specific people are experiencing this specific event. Kait obsessively documented firsts, from the big ones (first kiss, first date) to the idiosyncratic ones (first time they went to the zoo together, first time eating soup without an appendix), and every trip they took would have presented another series of firsts she could add to the list.

  The map on the bed is nearly unrecognizable under the marker’s hieroglyphics, a love letter written between Amber and Austin across the world.

  Hunter lingers in the room when they all go to breakfast, says he’s not feeling great, has lost his appetite. As soon as they’re gone, he digs Kait out of his bag and places her on the desk, opens the blinds so she can feel the sunlight. It has been almost a week since he’s been alone with her. He promises it won’t be so long next time. Kneels behind her and takes a photo of them in the desktop mirror, posts it on Facebook. No caption—he doesn’t want to give away his location.

  Still on his knees, he rests a hand on top of her, tells her about the trip, everything she’s missed. Some of the finish has been scraped off the cube from banging around the trunk, scratches and dings gouged out of the surface, scuffed like a used-up baseball. He tells her he’s sorry their vacation is ruined, knows this isn’t what she wanted—to wander around the southwestern US sealed inside his bag while Hunter sees a series of arbitrary landmarks. Nothing about this trip resembles their dreams aside from the fact that they are away from home. The regret tingles in his jaw like a heart attack.

  Lost in his mourning, he does not realize until too late that his companions have returned from breakfast. Austin and Amber maintain a frightened, awkward distance, rooted in the doorway, but Paul stands over him, says, “Who’s in the box?”

  He tells them they’re his grandmother’s ashes, but that lie crumbles quickly. They keep pushing, and he initially demurs, says there’s no story to tell. Pulling Kait down with him onto the floor, he makes them ask several times before filling them in on every detail: the ectopic pregnancy, the insurance money, the Facebook photos, the broken-down car, the buses, the scorned Dixons in his house, and the confrontation with Jack. He tells them Kait would have really liked the three
of them, would have loved Amber’s enthusiasm and Austin’s sense of humor and Paul’s devotion to his missing wife.

  They interrogate him for another twenty minutes, and he answers their questions as honestly as he can, giving them a rough outline of the trip so far and telling them everything they want to know about Kait. When silence descends over the room again, he takes it as his cue to leave, putting Kait back in his bag and hoisting it on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says, the only explanation he can offer, inadequate as it is.

  NINETEEN

  You’re a single man again. Some men think this is a dream come true, like to joke with other men about how they can’t stand their wives, who are nagging and old and boring, and they dream of being back on the prowl, making up for lost time with nubile and enthusiastic young women, but you haven’t been single in almost a decade, and being single when you’re thirty is so vastly different from being single when you’re twenty that they barely qualify as related experiences.

  Some days, you cannot stop thinking about having to live another fifty years like this.

  Now and then, you thought about the girls from your past. Fantasized about running into them on the street, striking up a conversation and going out to grab coffee. Finding out they’re single and they’ve been missing you all this time. Showing them how much funnier and more mature you are than you used to be. Feeling what it’s like to be flirted with again, because you couldn’t remember the last time anyone, anywhere, had flirted with you. Kait didn’t know how to flirt, felt uncomfortable trying to act sexy, and even though you knew she loved you and you thought she achieved sexiness without any effort, it wasn’t quite the same as sitting down to lunch with a woman who wanted to seduce you. It would be gratifying to know that you still represented a viable option for at least some women somewhere. And, okay, the fantasizing wasn’t always so innocent. You thought that if you were ever single again, you would enjoy it in a way you didn’t in college, because you were awkward then and didn’t go to parties, and so you missed out on a crucial element of the university experience. In the aftermath of Kait’s death, Uncle Bobby tried to cheer you up, said something about how you’re free to go out on the town again, and you played along, laughing, but then here’s what you thought: actually, maybe he’s right.

  EVERY MAY, SHE HAD to use up her accumulated vacation days, burning them all off before they expired, and for two weeks you found yourself spending every free moment with her. She crammed the days full of outings and expectations—movie dates, day trips to Amish country, nights out at swanky restaurants, repainting various rooms in your house, an interminable series of chores so that sometimes it felt like your life was devoted to running errands. Your life became regimented and overwhelmingly active, and she kept saying, “This is so much fun,” and you nodded, because it was fun at first and because you knew this time was important to her, knew she sometimes felt disconnected from the real world when she was working every day. But you found yourself sometimes wishing for extra space, thinking it would be nice to just have a couple hours alone to watch TV uninterrupted or to play around on the computer, both of which suddenly felt pressing when you couldn’t do them at your whim. You suggested she go out with her friends, catch up with them while you stayed home, you didn’t want to monopolize her. And you were relieved on the days when she finally went back to work, but in hindsight you can’t identify exactly the source of the relief, besides that you were able to return to your hollow and perfunctory daily routine while blithely assuming she would always be there for you.

  WHEN YOU SEE BEAUTIFUL women out in the world—and they’re everywhere you look—you can’t help comparing them to Kait. You search them for the curve of her hips, the jetstream curl in her hair, the constellations of freckles on her right forearm. Think of how much work is involved in getting to know these new women. Your life had been completely built around the idea of being a married man until the day you died, but now that plan is ruined and it’s difficult to know how to begin again. You’re not even sure exactly who you are anymore; your personality and hers molded themselves to each other over time, subtle alterations, gradual erosion of certain habits, accretion of new beliefs and mannerisms, the accumulation of inside jokes and a shared history. The expertise you both developed in reading the other’s nonverbal cues, so that you could process an entire conversation with no words, and barely even any motion. You could look at her and know what she was thinking, and she could do the same with you, but what if that language isn’t adaptable? What if you evolved into a person who is capable of only being loved by exactly one other person?

  YOU HAVE NO CONCEPT of what adult dating entails. You were still living with your parents when you started dating your wife. How does one even begin to retrain oneself? It all seems so harrowing: the careful crafting of an Internet dating profile, checking e-mail every day until you find someone who wants to meet for coffee, the meeting and worrying about ordering the right kind of coffee and the small talking, the stressing every night about whether they like you and whether you really like them. The near inevitability of rejection. The cumulative agony of being dumped by your rebound relationship after your wife’s death. The baggage you carry with you forever, the way your wife’s death will infect all future relationships, and the lingering concern in the back of women’s minds that you’re a hex, that marrying you might doom them too. The fact that they might be right. The fact that right now you’re not old, but soon you will be. Old. And undateable. And this persistent thought that if you’re undateable, then what that means is you’re unlovable.

  EVERYONE YOU USED TO know is married and has kids now, and is too busy panicking about amortization schedules and changing diapers and watching cartoon shows about talking alligators to worry about your depression. They’re at least ten years removed from regaining some measure of independence, and if you’re still single by then, you will have become a weird guy to hang around with, because people do not trust single men at that age.

  AFTER YOUR WEDDING, YOU stood in a receiving line so everyone could shake your hand and tell Kait she looked beautiful and tell you you clean up nice! as if they were surprised that you could look presentable in public. Family and friends insisted on saying things to her like I don’t know what you see in him or good luck with him, you’ll need it, and the path of least resistance was to chuckle along with their insulting jokes, but she defended you every time, saying things like he treats me good, I’m the lucky one or I think I’ll hold on to him a while. You shook hands with limping uncles and hugged teary-eyed aunts. Every time a married man patted you on the back and said welcome to the club, you pretended they were the first to have come up with that one. They barraged you with advice about compromise and never going to bed angry. And they all kept saying things like marriage is tough and you have to really work at it. But that never seemed particularly true, not even on days when you lost patience with her or when she complained about your lack of ambition. Marriage was easy, the easiest, most uncomplicated thing you’ve ever done, the most unambiguously pleasant and satisfying and right thing you’ve ever engaged in. Maybe, you thought but didn’t say, if your marriage is so hard, then you married the wrong person. Maybe, you thought but didn’t say, if you can’t handle it, then you shouldn’t be the one giving out advice. But you were arrogant then, younger and sheltered and drunk on love. You both thought you were the only ones who had ever loved the way you did, and thought nobody could ever match or understand the depths of it.

  TWENTY

  Each of his companions has distinct reactions to Hunter’s story: Paul, who seems to have gained respect for him now that he can see Hunter has also endured legitimate anguish, welcomes him to the club; Austin keeps saying, “Dude, that sucks,” and now stands closer to Amber as if to prevent her from escaping; and Amber becomes deeply invested in the issue of the ashes themselves, suddenly very concerned about Hunter’s need for closure. She is young and she still believes in simple solutions to complex
problems. By now, Hunter has heard many promises of impending closure, this notion that at some point if one performs the right action, chants the right series of words at the right time, then suddenly everything will be better, the well of grief is stopped up and everyone can pretend the past never happened. And she is convinced that for him to progress from his current state, what he needs to do is let the ashes fly, send them out on the wings of the wind and watch as Kait wisps across the earth, destined to land, who knows where, maybe in an eagle’s nest atop a craggy mountain somewhere, or to whistle into somebody’s nose and be sneezed out into a handkerchief, or to tumble and settle back into the soil. Austin seems to have only a casual interest in the ash-spreading cause, but wants to support Amber, who keeps saying things like, “It’s no big deal, I like to be helpful,” even when nobody has thanked her for doing this or called her helpful, and so they are both grilling him for background information in order to develop a psychological profile of Kait and make an informed decision.

  AMBER’S IMAGINATION IS LIMITED to things she has seen in movies and on TV, and so she chooses the Grand Canyon as the perfect setting for the release, envisioning a purely cinematic moment in which Hunter stands on the precipice of the canyon, delivers a heartfelt—not to mention long overdue—eulogy, and then frees Kait from her confinement, liberates himself from his heartache. She’s more animated now than she has been for most of the trip: flinging her arms about like a visionary film director, she is preemptively teary-eyed as she describes the beauty of the scene. In the car, she does not sleep, asks to hold Kait, sometimes shakes the box beside her ear like a child investigating a Christmas gift, like she’s expecting to hear Kait’s voice whispering secrets of the afterlife to her. Hunter has made no promises to open the urn, only says they should see the canyon regardless, and along the way, he holds Kait up to the window so she can see the landscape, first flat as a dinner plate, then furrowed like a shar-pei’s face, now jagged and imposing. The roads become more populated as they approach their destination, broken-down cars pulled over on the shoulder as men kick tires and pop hoods. The heat still incredible, the night sky red like a cooked crab, the sun rising early and angry like a colicky baby. Over time, it becomes easy to take for granted that those towering hills in the distance are actually eight-thousand-foot-high mountains, to become inured to being surrounded by postcard views of the world. Vacationing sometimes is nothing more than a hunt for the best views possible, but the current views are cheapened by the promise of the majestic sights that might be just down the road.