A Widow's Awakening

by Maryanne Pope

  I meet up with Mark and Charlie for lunch to discuss the funds being raised in Sam’s memory.

  “I appreciate all you’ve done,” I tell them. “But I’m really concerned we do the right thing with the money.”

  “Then let’s take our time,” Charlie says.

  “Pin sales are going well,” adds Mark. “Ten thousand bucks so far.”

  “That’s a lot of cash,” I say, taking a mammoth bite of my chicken sandwich.

  Charlie nods. “And a lot of court time.”

  Sam had cashed in most of his court time to pay for our California vacation. So, since officers were donating their court time to Sam’s fund that meant their hard-earned money wasn’t going to family holidays or buying braces for their kid’s teeth. Maybe that’s why the earlier meeting had upset me so much. The money donated by police officers should go back to the police community—not college students.

  I devour a fork full of fries, followed by a swig of beer. “This is weird, isn’t it? Me having lunch with you guys, instead of Sam?”

  “You eat as much as he did,” Charlie teases.

  Mark smiles. “Or more.”

  “Hah hah. By the way,” I say to Mark, “I did tell Sam you wanted to meet him for lunch.”

  He nods. Charlie looks at him.

  “Adri took a report from me right before they went on vacation,” says Mark.

  I nod. “It ended up being my very last one.”

  “There are more than a thousand cops in this city,” Charlie says, flipping his thumb toward Mark. “What are the chances your last report would be from this clown?”

  Pretty slim, I’d say…signpost-slim.

  BACK HOME, I’m flipping through the mail for sympathy cards when I see a large envelope from the wolf conservation organization Sam and I belong to. Thinking that reading about Nakoda, the radio-collared wolf we’ve sponsored for the past three years, might cheer me up, I open the envelope.

  Nope. A hunter had shot her on September 22nd—the day Sam and I had been at Disneyland. Through my tears, I read how the nine-year-old alpha female had been sighted outside the small, protected area allotted to wolves. Since the hunter hadn’t noticed the collar around her neck, identifying her off limits for hunting, he’d shot her. For several weeks, her pups and pack-mates had repeatedly returned to the den site, either searching for her or grieving her death. Oh, how I can relate.

  I phone the Hope chaplain. “This,” I sob, “hurts.”

  “I bet. I noticed you have a lot of pictures of wolves in your home.”

  “Yeah…we both liked them.”

  Then he says, “Maybe Nakoda is now Sam’s companion, just as Sasha is yours.”

  It’s OK for me to say weird shit like this but when other people do, it really does sound ridiculous. “Maybe,” I say. “But let me guess: this, too, is part of God’s plan and therefore none of my business to figure out?”

  “Not necessarily,” is his reply.

  I DECIDE it might not be a bad idea to have Sasha blessed after all. Sam is dead; Nakoda is dead; I’ll be dead in six months. The least I can do is save our dog.

  The following Tuesday, I march my mother and Sasha downtown to church. My Anglican reverend—the man who married me and Sam—has agreed to bless her, even though we’re now two months past the “blessing of the animals” ceremony. But when he leans over to touch Sasha’s head, she snaps and snarls at him. I struggle to hold her back, apologizing profusely. Then I take my seat in the pew and Sasha climbs up beside me. I can almost hear Sam laughing.

  After the service, I ask the reverend to explain the difference between the soul and the spirit.

  He thinks about this. “I would say that the spirit is the life force of the soul.”

  “Ah, yes…” I reply, nodding as another long-lost truth clicks into place.

  Then he asks me how I’m doing.

  I flash him a big smile. “Not bad.”

  “Honestly?”

  I blush. “Well, it’s up and down.”

  As we’re leaving the church, my mom tells me she’s glad we came today. “And I put in a prayer for the polar bears, too,” she adds.

  I stop walking. “Why?”

  “Because they’re not in very good shape, Adri.”

  My stomach tightens. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t want to upset you.”

  “Too late.”

  “Well, some are starving,” she says, “because the ice isn’t frozen long enough for them to hunt seals.”

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “Because of global warming.”

  “Like I need to hear this,” I snap, as yet another issue gets added to my to-do list.

  We walk in silence until we come to a small gift store where, in the window, I spot drink coasters made of slate—each with a different Chinese character and corresponding element written in English.

  “Hey!” I cry, “It’s the earth, wind, fire, water thing again.”

  “Oh?”

  “From the retreat I went to last month,” I explain. “I’m water, and Sam is earth.”

  She goes inside the store and buys me the coasters.

  At home, I put the water coaster beside my big chair and the earth coaster where Sam used to place his cup, on the coffee table in front of the couch.

  “There,” I say to my mom, “that’s better.”

  “Um…are you sure you’re OK staying here on your own?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I think you’re doing marvelous, Adri. It’s just that—”

  “Mom, do you believe in Jesus?”

  “That’s a very personal question.”

  I shrug. “Then don’t answer it.”

  She thinks a moment then says, “I think of Jesus as my friend.”

  “So, you do believe in Him then?”

  “Of course.”

  MY NEXT visitors are two co-workers, lugging a cooler full of frozen food and a large gift-wrapped box, which I immediately unwrap. It’s a table-top water fountain. They help me set it up on the fireplace hearth.

  After they leave, I settle into my chair and revel in the wide selection of coping mechanisms from which I can now choose. I can chant God is Love; drink sherry; pop sleeping pills; eat cookies; kiss Sam’s earth coaster and photos; fantasize about seeing him again in heaven, Nakoda by his side; or watch water trickling over my new fountain.

  “YOU WERE my rock, Sammy!” I wail at the fountain over coffee the next morning. “My granite container! For what am I without you, but water running all over the place? You were (sob) the quiet strength behind my chaotic energy. Now I must be the solid one!”

  Off to a great start, I stand up and am about to go into the kitchen when I notice a pile of old newspapers beside the couch. Shit! The recycling gets picked up today. I’m cramming the papers into a bag when a Halloween article catches my eye. In the pagan tradition, October 31st marks the end of the six months of summer and the beginning of the six winter months.

  Six months will take me to…the end of April! Just as Sam was earth and I’m water, so too was he summer and I winter. He loved the heat; I love the cold. Is this the stuff of true soul mates?

  “Oh yes,” I say to the fountain, as the recycling truck rumbles past, “things are starting to make sense.”

  TWO DAYS later, I meet Amanda for lunch.

  “You have such a positive attitude,” she remarks between bites of spinach salad.

  “I guess that’s how I come across, eh?”

  “But?”

  “On the inside,” I admit, “things aren’t so rosy.”

  “I bet.”

  I dip a fry in ketchup. “Right from the beginning it was as if two of me existed: strong on the outside, terrified on the inside.”

  “And now?” she asks.

  “And now my two selves are even more separate. But showing people the Adri I want them to see is the only way I know how to cope.”

  She frowns. “And who is
the person you want them to see?”

  “The same one they want to see! The merry widow.”

  “Maybe you underestimate those around you.”

  I take a drink of water. “I can’t handle what’s going on inside me. How could anyone else?”

  “Or maybe you’re afraid that by being your true self, you’ll drive people away?”

  I shrug. “Maybe.”

  The waitress pours more water in my glass. I take a sip. “I’m ready to hear about the night Sam died.”

  “Are you sure?” asks Amanda.

  “Yes.”

  She places a file folder on the table but doesn’t open it. “At the beginning of our shift,” she says, “Sam told us all about your holiday. He said you guys had an awesome time. And then later in the shift, he told me about the convertible and how friggin’ hot it was with the top down. He said he’d look over at you in the passenger seat and you were roasting.”

  “I was so uncomfortable! And there he was, soaking up the sun like a cat.”

  We both laugh. Then I point to the folder. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a printout of the calls we went to during our shift.”

  “Oh.”

  “I thought you might want me to go through it with you.”

  “I do.”

  She tilts her head to one side. “Are you sure?”

  I take another drink of water. “Absolutely.”

  Amanda goes through the calls, thereby giving me a play-by-play of the last night of Sam’s life. They’d interviewed a sexual assault victim at the hospital, checked out a suspicious vehicle then attended a house party complaint. They’d then met Tom for coffee, done a traffic stop, checked out two false alarms and were on the way home when another call came in.

  I lean forward. “Home?”

  “Yeah. Sam knew you were working day shift and wanted to stop in and say hi.”

  I crunch a piece of ice, my water gone. “What time?”

  “Well, let’s see…” she says, running her finger down the printout. “OK, yeah, it’d be here—sometime between 5:20 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., which I thought was kinda early for a visit.”

  I’ll say. I swallow nervously, thirsty again. I wouldn’t normally be up that early for a day shift. I hadn’t told Sam that I’d planned on waking up at 5:00 a.m. to write. Nor had I followed through on my promise to myself. Knowing me better than I know my own self, had Sam been coming home to make sure I was awake?

  “We were only about four blocks from your place,” she says, “when another call came in.”

  His death woke me up instead.

  The waitress fills my water glass and I take a big drink.

  “Are you OK?” Amanda asks.

  “Not really. But I do need to hear this, so keep going.”

  “Well, something else happened earlier in the night,” she says, “that I think you should know about.”

  “OK.”

  “We were doing a traffic stop and this huge truck had barreled past us, so I made a comment about how dangerous it is working on the side of the road. Then Sam told me about the time he was sitting in his police car, with the lights activated, and had glanced in his rearview mirror to see this semi flying up behind him. He said it was the weirdest sensation thinking he was going to die.”

  I lean forward. “Sam said that a few hours before he actually did die?”

  “Yeah! Adri, I honestly think Sam chose me to work with that night for a reason.”

  “Which is?”

  “Maybe he knew we’d have this conversation.”

  I add traffic safety to my to-do list of issues to tackle. I lean back in my chair and take another huge drink of water.

  “I have never seen someone drink so much water,” she says.

  I let out a snort. “No kidding, eh? Ever since Sam fell I can’t seem to get enough water in me.”

  Amanda nods slowly but doesn’t say anything. Then she slides the printout toward me. “You can keep that.”

  “Thanks,” I say, glancing down at it. The 5:47a.m. line catches my eye. “Hole through drywall in main entrance,” I say.

  “Sam said that.”

  Then I read the 5:49 a.m. line: “With K-9.”

  “That too,” she says. “In fact, that was the last thing we heard Sam say.”

  I take a deep breath. “He’s a good guy, right? The K-9 officer.”

  “The best.”

  “Sam was in good hands?”

  She nods. “He was with people who loved him. Tom and all the guys were awesome. Everybody did their best for Sam.”

  It’s not until we’re in the parking lot afterward that I remember about the city map. I retrieve it from my car and hand it to her. “This was in Sam’s duty bag.”

  “It was?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “Oh. I wondered where that ended up.”

  “It was you reading the map?”

  Amanda shakes her head. “No. Sam was. I was driving.”

  “But Sam always drove.”

  “Not that night he didn’t. He asked me to drive.” Amanda hands the map back to me. “You can keep that, too.”

  On the way to my next appointment, I realize that this means the map had been one of the last things Sam had touched after all—which also means he’d been the one who’d left it folded open to the location of his fall.

  “HOW GOES the battle?” the police psychologist asks me, as he’s my next appointment.

  “I don’t think I’m winning.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m having some pretty bizarre thoughts.”

  “Such as…”

  “I think Sam knew he was gonna die that night.”

  He nods. “OK. Why do you think that?”

  I take a deep breath then let loose. “Well, I just had lunch with Amanda and she told me that Sam asked her to drive that night, which was totally uncharacteristic of him because he always drove—but that meant that he was the one reading the map that I found, open to the location of his fall, in his duty bag and now I’m wondering if that’s some sort of clue as to what we’re supposed to be doing with his memorial fund, and then Amanda also said that during their shift, Sam told her a story about the time he was nearly rear-ended by a semi and how he had some idea of what it must feel like right before you’re gonna die—and then he did die a coupla hours later! So not only was Sam possibly aware of his pending death, he’d specifically chosen to work with someone who would for sure pass on all the relevant information to me, so I’d know what to do.”

  “That’s the most you’ve ever said to me, Adri.”

  I nod and take a slug of water from my water bottle. Though this is our third visit, I guess I haven’t shared much—and certainly not the I-am-the-Second-Coming-of-Christ possibility.

  I feel my cheeks flush. “That’s not my only wacky idea.”

  “It’s perfectly normal to have strange thoughts,” he says, “especially after the shock you’ve experienced.”

  I haven’t come across that one in the grief pamphlets.

  “Although,” he continues, “it is important to remember that any thought you continue thinking can become a belief.”

  I scrunch up my face, struggling to wrap my muddled mind around this concept.

  The psychologist clears his throat. “I just need to ensure that what we’re referring to here doesn’t have anything to do with you harming yourself?”

  Again with the suicide stuff. I’ll be dead by spring, but it won’t be by my own hand. “I told you before,” I say, “that’d be cheating. There are no shortcuts.”

  “Good. Now do you have a close friend to talk to?”

  “There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of people in my life.”

  “But is there one person you share everything with, Adri?”

  “That would be Sam.”

  He tries a different approach. “Would you consider attending a grief group?”

  I picture myself sitting in a circle of w
idows, revealing that I am the female incarnation of Christ. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to sit around listening to other people’s sad stories.”

  “Grief groups are about sharing,” he says. “Some people find that valuable.”

  But hearing about other people’s losses might lessen the significance of my own. This is about Sam and me. At this point, I don’t give a shit about what others are going through and I certainly don’t have the time or energy to listen to their crap.

  The psychologist then asks me how I’m feeling about next month.

  I shrug. “What about it?”

  “Christmas…”

  “Oh. I hadn’t gotten that far.”

  “Well, you might find the season really tough without Sam,” he says. “After the death of a spouse, most people have a difficult time receiving Christmas cards addressed to both husband and wife.”

  I stare at him.

  “That’s just an example…”

  Oh, how I wish I were worrying about Sam’s name on a goddamn envelope. I stand up. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Adri…”

  I pick up my purse. “What?”

  “Promise me,” he says, “you’ll talk to someone.”

  WHEN I get home, I call Jodie to test the religious waters. “Have you read Revelations?”

  Pause. “Uh…no.”

  “Well,” I say, “It’s loaded with crazy symbolism and is totally dark and gloomy. I think it was written to scare us into smartening up.”

  “Maybe. But who reads that stuff these days?”

  “Actually, I’m reading a book about a group of people who are trying to interpret Revelations, so they can figure out when Armageddon will be and who’ll be involved. They’re using numerology to interpret historical events.”

  “Why are you reading that?” she asks.

  “I dunno. But for the record, I think the end of the world is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we believe it’s all gonna end in a fiery mess anyway, then wouldn’t our actions lead us to that very ending?”

  “I guess…”

  “I also read in Revelations about a war breaking out in heaven, where Michael and his angels fight the bad guys. And there’s a white horse and its rider, called Faithful and True, who apparently save the day.”