Joel's ritual was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread for lunch, peanut-butter honey on toast snacks at 3 p.m. while sitting at his architectural drawing board in the studio, and peanut butter vanilla smoothies every Saturday afternoon after his basketball game at the neighborhood park. The jar was nearly empty, the last remnants used to surprise Joel with the smoothie he never got to drink. And yet.
The cupboard would be empty without the peanut butter. The pantry, stocked full to feed two growing boys, would no doubt feel bare without it. The cruel twist of fate was that our boys preferred turkey sandwiches, something for which Joel blamed my DNA contributions.
“I can't believe it's been two years,” Anh said as we cleaned out the cupboard, as if I weren't keenly aware of every day without him. She knew sympathy stares were off-limits. I needed to not feel like a widow on exhibit around someone, and for me that person was Anh Ly, aptly named for “intellectual brightness” and “lion,” my best friend even when I was the last person on earth anyone would want to be friends with. “It's okay to get rid of the peanut butter.”
I felt the familiar squeeze in my chest that told me it would not be okay, that throwing away the peanut butter would be throwing away his memory. It's the small things that become giant calling cards of grief after someone you love dies. For me, it was peanut butter and a hundred everyday items and the larger ones, too: the hand-me-down sofa and our marital bed, which we'd named Lumpy with good reason. I shook my head vigorously and bit my bottom lip. I took the jar from her hand and curled it into me protectively. The thing is, when I lost Joel, my life lost its flavor, too.
I wondered if Monica had made Joel peanut butter smoothies when they had been together. She didn't seem like the nurturing type, though I have no proof to base this on other than that she hurt my husband; Judith believed the red Monica so bravely wore stood for she-devil, end of story. I wished Judith were more of a gossip, like my mother, because she was mum when it came to Monica. “Swore never to speak that woman's name again,” she said right after she told me that I could be running into her at the school. Why even mention her at all unless there was something I should know? Whatever had happened between them, time hadn't healed. Judith, for so much as preaching how God forgiveth, apparently could not forgive Monica for the transgressions against her only begotten son.
Seeing Monica that day in the parking lot made me realize I couldn't move on until I knew the truth about what happened with Monica and Joel before he died. I wanted to tell Anh this, too, because she was famously good at helping me wade through the muck of emotions that pulled me down like quicksand.
“Fine, we'll leave the peanut butter,” Anh said, moving on to the stale chips (trash) and canned food (charity). “But we know it's about more than peanut butter, Ramona. I want you to start considering having a little fun again.”
“It's only been two years,” I told her, switching the emphasis to make it apparent I thought this was a very short time to be without your soul mate, even though every day had dragged on as if it had been years since I'd last seen him, last touched him. I'd been dreading the cooler days, the green draining from the leaves and falling to the ground like nature's countdown to the anniversary of his death.
“This is not a ‘moving on’ speech. This is one best friend to another throwing out the idea of a little fun. Not a lot of fun, just a little something to stir your spirit,” Anh spoke with authority, and it wasn't just because she was the CEO of a big accounting firm or because she was voted the Vietnamese Business Woman of the Year. Not a local award or even a national award, mind you, but an international award. This much I knew: I was absolutely no fun, though people tell me I used to be.
Fun. If some believe grief has an expiration date, does fun have a start date after losing a soul mate? Or does it just creep up on you when you least expect it? I knew my double-PhD girlfriend was not referring to frivolous fun, like a carnival ride or even a spa retreat.
She meant what da Vinci had: la vita allegra. Of course I wanted it, but my joy jar was as empty as the peanut butter. She understood how hard it was to step out in to the world of the living where I believed Normals take everything for granted: their relationships, their health, their marriages. Most people did not find joy in the mundane, and they had their families intact. So how could I? I'd gone to bed hoping for an answer, but I'd woken up in the same empty-bed feeling, the thud of loneliness that rose as ritually as the sun.
“At least you've got your class. Anyone interesting this semester?” she said, throwing a bag of old flour in the dumpster.
This would be a great time to tell her that I had done something insanely spur-of-the-moment, acting on impulse, letting fate be my guide-all those things Joel had been known for. He was the spontaneous one who pulled me along for the ride-since then I was as useless as a deserted red Radio Flyer with no one to take me away.
“Well, there is this one guy,” I started.
Anh held a loaf of moldy bread in her hands. I wish I could've blamed that on one of William's self-made science projects, but it was my own negligence. When Joel was around, the bread had never lasted long enough to grow mold. “A guy-guy? Not just-there-is-this-man-from-Timbuktu guy, but a guy-with-dating-potential guy?”
Dating belonged with fun-two words that could not be found in my personal dictionary. Most people had been patient with me, broaching the subject of “getting back out there” casually as if I didn't feel it like a sledgehammer. But when she said the word “dating,” it didn't feel like a blow. It sounded like a normal word, like “broccoli” or “sidewalk” or “orange.” Perhaps it was because she said it after she'd asked if there was anyone interesting and my brain had conjured the image of da Vinci and though he was very much foreign, the idea of him in a romantic sense was not foreign to me. But I hadn't thought of da Vinci as dating material for me -for the hot, under-thirty set, sure-but not for me, the over-thirty, widowy-type. “Hold up. I just said interesting. All of twenty-five, gorgeous, full of life, and happens to be named Leonardo da Vinci.”
Anh slapped my arm. “ Hoan hô! Hoan hô!,” she cheered, laughing. “Maybe that's just the spice you need in your life. Someone carefree and void of sticky emotional baggage. Take advantage now before he meets too many people.”
“What are you saying?” I said defensively. “That he would only be interested in me until something better comes along?”
Anh gave me the once-over, from my hair in the '80s scrunchie to the worn-down Birkenstocks on my feet. What lay between wasn't any better: an oversized hooded UT sweatshirt of Joel's and black sweatpants (faded to gray) with holes in the knees. Anh may not wear makeup tested on animals and use only organic hairspray and eschew leather, but she was stylish and put together. Anh, who was the first person I'd known to ever wear Birks, didn't even wear them anymore. “Well…”
“Just come out and say what you're thinking. I can see the motor turning.”
“Fine,” she said, putting one hand on her slender hip and the other hand on my shoulder. “Let's just say you and your bread have something in common.”
“I'm moldy?” I asked.
“No, Ramona. Stale. And the thing is, I know that you know this. You're just refusing to do anything about it, because that would mean you have to wake up and breathe again and shed that coat of protection you've been wearing. You don't want men to find you attractive anymore because lo and behold, if they do, you'll have to do something about it. Like kiss them, or have sex, or have a man-woman relationship again. And I'm not saying that you should do that-definitely not until you're ready and only you know when that is. And the only person women should try to look good for is themselves, and you don't even want to do that. That's all I'm saying. With love, from Anh.”