After the one, we’d walked away giddy with relief. In our relief we’d kissed, clutched at each other for the pain hadn’t yet started.
In this room Ray had complained of the cold, especially at night, and when he had to wait in Radiology to be X-rayed. Despite the fever he was running, yet he’d been cold. Yet I can remember when Ray went outdoors in winter without a coat, in Windsor. Frigid wind blowing from the Detroit River, the massive lake beyond—Lake Michigan.
Younger then, not so susceptible to colds.
I am frightened—I don’t remember that person. I am losing that person—my husband—in that long-ago time before the wreck.
My instinct now is—to locate a blanket, to pull a blanket up to Ray’s chin. He is lying beneath just a thin white cotton sheet.
I know—I know!—my husband is no longer living. He doesn’t require a blanket, nor even a sheet. I know this and yet—I am not able to understand that he is dead.
Which is why I seem to be waiting for some sign from him, some signal—a private signal—for we’ve always been so close, a single thought can pass between us, like a glance—I’m waiting for Ray to forgive me —It’s all right. What you are doing is all right and not a mistake.
And even if it was a mistake, I love you.
Just yesterday I was able to cry. In this room at this bedside leaning over my husband who was surprised by my tears I was able to cry but now I am not able to cry, I am dry-eyed, my mouth is dry as sandpaper. Now for the first time I see that Ray isn’t wearing his glasses—how strange this is, that I hadn’t noticed before. And on the bedside table, there are his glasses, which are relatively new, wire-rimmed and rather stylish glasses on which he wears clip-on dark lenses in bright sunshine. Very slowly I take up these glasses though I have nothing to put them in, for safekeeping; and here is Ray’s wristwatch—the time is now 1:29 A.M.
And here are Ray’s colored pencils, that will need sharpening.
These items, I place carefully in my black tote bag. Beautiful cut flowers—white and yellow mums, red carnations, purple iris—in vases, from friends—these I will leave behind.
(Have I thanked our friends for these flowers? I don’t think so—I don’t remember. So many messages on our answering machine at home—I haven’t answered. And many messages deleted by accident, or in haste.)
The beautiful large Valentine card, signed by our friends—for Ray—to cheer him up—this, I should have brought to him, yesterday.
On this Valentine the heartfelt wishes of our friends—I am staring at the words in a sort of trance—Dear Ray wish you were here. Ray—be well soon! Ray you must come back to us soon, we love you and miss you so much. Ray here’s to sausage in our future! Ray please rest and rest and rest! It takes time. And we want to see you soon. Ray heal well! We all miss you tonight. Come home soon! Ray—I’m glad to hear you’re feeling better and hope you will be entirely recovered very soon. Dear Ray—I once knew a man named Ray, who I thought was very okay, he liked to read, while drinking mead, the wonderful man who was Ray . . .
It seems horrible to me, unconscionable—how could I have been so stupid, selfish, neglectful—I hadn’t brought this Valentine for Ray to see. Naively thinking I would keep it for him, to give to him at home.
“And now it’s too late.”
So many mistakes I’ve made, and am making. This is new to me, as if I have crossed over to another place where continually I will be making mistakes, stupid mistakes, contemptible mistakes. Soon I will learn that a widow is one who makes mistakes.
In the closet are Ray’s clothes, shoes. A laundry bag into which Ray has put soiled underwear and socks. There is his jacket—the one he’d worn on Monday morning. There, the striped blue flannel shirt, and the trousers. I am fumbling to remove Ray’s clothes from the hangers, the blue striped shirt falls to the floor . . . In a panic I am thinking I will have to make two trips to the car. I will have to make two trips to the car.
If I leave this room, I will never be able to return. I will never be able to force myself to return.
I should call someone, a friend. I should call for help. I can’t carry these things by myself! Not in one trip.
Yet, I feel shy about calling friends. It is 1:30 A.M.—a terrible shock to be awakened by a ringing phone, and news of a friend’s death.
Better not. Better just go home.
In the morning will be soon enough. And call Ray’s sister who lives in Connecticut, whom I have never met.
And my brother, and sister-in-law.
Ray has died. He was in the hospital for not quite a week with pneumonia, he was getting better but—he died.
Instead of leaving the hospital room, I lift the phone receiver. I must have decided to call a friend, friends—this seems to be what I am doing, after all.
And the ringing in the distance, invading another’s sleep.
In this way, at this moment, the Widow acts instinctively—she does not drive home alone as perhaps she’d fantasized and she does not do harm to herself as perhaps she’d fantasized—she calls friends.
But only friends whose telephone numbers she seems to have memorized.
You made my life possible. I owe my life to you.
I can’t do this alone.
And yet—what is the option? The Widow is one who has discovered that there is no option.
There is a plastic bag provided for me, into which I can put my husband’s smaller things. I am determined to carry everything in one trip and somehow, I will manage.
This determination to manage—to cope—to do as much unassisted as possible—is the Widow’s prerogative. You might argue that it’s a sign of her wish to appear to be—which is not the same as being—self-sufficient; or you might argue that it is a symptom of her derangement.
But then, in the early minutes/hours/days of Widowhood—what is not, if examined closely, a symptom of derangement?
These books Ray has been reading—which he’d asked me to bring from home—and his shoes—in the plastic bag these objects are strangely heavy, and unwieldy. One of the books is a bound galley in which I’d been reading intermittently at Ray’s bedside, and from time to time reading aloud to him an interesting passage from it—a book about the human brain by a Princeton neuroscientist whom I have met—the jaunty title is Welcome to Your Brain. The sight of the galley fills me with a sick, sinking sensation. . . .
I will take it home. I will hide it on a shelf. Never can I bring myself to look into it again.
“Honey? I think they want me to go now . . .”
My voice is thin, wavering. Perhaps it isn’t a voice but a faintly articulated thought.
Staring at Ray on the bed. It is not natural—instinctively you grasp that this is not-right—to see a person so composed, unmoving.
Yet there is the sensation—visceral, uncanny—that the person who is lying so still, not breathing, or breathing so faintly that it’s undetected, is well aware of being observed, and observing you through shut eyes.
Helplessly I am standing here, thinking—the thought comes to me—There will never be a right time.
Meaning, a time to leave the hospital room.
Meaning, a time to turn my back, and walk away.
To turn my back on Ray—my husband. How is this possible!
Awkwardly, and very slowly, in small steps like a blind person I back my way out of the room. Very