His Wife Leaves Him

or twice a day. There’s almost a whole container of it in one of the kitchen cupboards. He was planning to throw it out, but now he won’t. Her medications, she said, made her constipated, and constipation gave her a bellyache. “I don’t like talking about it,” she once said — oh, not so long ago. Months. “Why not?” he said. “It happens to everybody, or every adult, and you and I have been through everything. I’ll do what I can to help you with it, though I don’t know what that could be. Shaking up the fiber drink for you till it’s absolutely smooth. Anything you ask me to do to make things easier and more comfortable for you.” “I still don’t like talking about it,” she said. “While I’m still able to, I’d like to deal with it myself quietly.” “My baby,” he said, “I love you, shit and all,” and she said “Please don’t talk like that, and it’s not because it’s not a joking matter. It makes me feel worse. And I’m not your baby,” and he said “I meant ‘my darling, my sweetheart.’” “Did I ever tell you about one incident with my father?” he said to her that time or another, but when they were on the same subject. “When I was living up the block from my folks? I used to make sure every night, around eleven or twelve, that he was all right in his hospital bed in their apartment.” “You told me,” she said. “I told you that if I came into his room and he’d had a bowel movement since my mother had put him to bed, and you’d know it before you got there, I’d clean him and it up?” “Yes,” she said. “I suppose most children couldn’t have done it. I doubt I could have.” “That’s okay. But did I tell you it almost always made me gag and want to throw up? But then I told myself ‘You have to get used to it. If you’re going to do it, you can’t be put off by it. It’s just shit. So stick your fingers in it once and that’ll cure you of your squeamishness,’ and I did and it worked. Didn’t gag again, neither coming into the room or taking care of him. Did it like a pro. So don’t be concerned about it with me. I’m used to it. I’ve done it. I can handle it.” And she said “I don’t want to hear anymore. If it happens, do what you have to, or what I can’t do, but please don’t talk about it,” and he said “I just thought you’d feel easier, knowing.” Feels the back of his head. Blood seems to have dried. Should remember to wipe the back of his head with a wet towel in case there’s any blood there. Doesn’t want to scare the kids. And give up. Nothing’s going to come, and he stands up and flushes the toilet. Why did he even flush? For a little pee? They get their water from a well, so he’s always trying to conserve water though they’ve never run dry except when there was an electrical outage. And look at him, still with the “we” and present tense, and he does mean Gwen and he and not his daughters. That’ll change, but he bets not for a year or more. After a number of these outages — most of them short, an hour or two, but one for four days, where he had to get their water from a neighbor — he had a generator installed that automatically turns the electricity on a few seconds after the outage. So what’s he saying? Lost track. That he didn’t want to be without water with her the last two years, that’s why he got the generator. Before, except for that four-day outage — or five, or six; he forgets, but it was unbelievably long and very hard for them — they would use candles and the fireplace and gas stove. It would even be romantic and then joyous or at least cause for cheers when the lights came back on. Because sometimes — and this is the main reason he needed the well working — after almost a week of her being constipated, she would shit several times in an hour, and even after that, most of them normal bowel movements but some so large that they stopped up the toilet when he flushed it and poured over the rim with the water and he then had to use the plunger for he doesn’t know how long to unclog it and wipe up the shit and paper and about an inch of water on the floor and give it and the toilet a good cleaning. “I’m so sorry and ashamed,” she said the first time, and he said “Don’t be. Didn’t I tell you that once? It’s not a job I like, and I for sure know it’s not one you wanted to happen, but what can we do?” The second time, after he flushed the toilet and saw the shit and paper rising to the top, he cried “Oh no-o-o-o,” and then screamed when they spilled over the rim, “I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it,” and banged his fists against the wall. She started crying. He thought “Good God, what am I doing? I’m making things worse. She could have another stroke.” He said “Okay, I’m better; I got it all out,” and told her to kick off her slippers—“Let’s try not to track up the rest of the house — and after I finish here I’ll wash them or throw them out.” Later he said he was sorry. “I swear, I swear; deeply sorry. I obviously wasn’t as adjusted to it yet as I thought. But, cleaning it up, I figured out how to avoid the toilet overflowing again when your bowel movements are that large. And I’m not blaming you for them, just saying. First of all, no paper in the toilet. After I wipe you, or you wipe yourself, we’ll put the paper into a plastic shopping bag and get rid of it in the garbage. Then I’ll get half the feces out with a kitty litter scoop into a pail of some kind with a little water in it and flush it down the other toilet. Or even less than half, but get it down to the size of a normal bowel movement, and do that a couple of times. That should do it,” and she said “I hope it works.” “It’ll work. Why shouldn’t it?” and she said “You know, with our luck.” Lets the sink water run hot. Sometimes he gets the hot water in a large plastic container from the kitchen faucet. It comes there faster, so there’s less waste. Then swishes around his wet shaving brush inside the shaving soap dish — the same cat-food tin he’s used for about the last ten years — and lathers his face and neck. New blade? The last few mornings he’s asked himself that and then thought “Tomorrow. I don’t want to bother.” And today he thinks the shave doesn’t have to be that close, for where’s he going? The lather’s disintegrating, so he starts shaving. Shaves every day. Maybe he should change that. Skip a day now and then, or maybe grow a beard. If he did, it’d come in gray. Finishes the neck and starts on the cheeks, always the right one first. Doesn’t think he’d like having a gray beard. It’d just make him look older than he looks already. Mentioned to Gwen about possibly growing one a year ago and she said “How big a beard?” and he said “Full. A goatee or anything like that wouldn’t be for me. Too foppish, and they look pasted on,” and she said “I don’t like kissing a man with a full beard. I don’t even like touching it with my hand.” “I know; it scratches your face. Lots of women say that. And it probably doesn’t feel good when I’m going down on you,” and she said “Maybe. But that was so long ago I don’t even remember if my bearded man did that to me.” “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” and she said “It’s true. It wasn’t necessary.” Does the chin and above the lip and is finished. He always did a quick shave, with very few cuts. Once did have a beard. Twice. Before he met her. Witch hazel? Don’t bother. Once in the summer and his face sweated so much from it, that he shaved it off after a few weeks. Another time, before or after the other one, it itched and he kept scratching it and pulling on the beard, something he doesn’t like to see other men do, and every so often he had to tweeze a hair that had got ingrown and hurt. That beard he kept longer. It was almost the same color and texture of his head hair — the only difference was that it had a little red in it — and he felt it made him look artistic. One person even said he looked like van Gogh, which he liked, and another like a young Pissarro, which he didn’t know what to make of, and the woman he was seeing at the time said it made him look rugged. But then he felt he was hiding behind it — he wasn’t showing his real face; this was around the same time he stopped for good combing his hair over his bald spots — and shaved it off. Shaves every day because he doesn’t want to look even slightly like a bum, which is what his father said about men who looked as if they hadn’t shaved for two or three days, and he doesn’t want to look artistic or rugged either. His father also shaved every day, even when he wasn’t going anywhere, till he got sick with a couple of diseases and couldn’t shave himself, so he’d shave him almost every morning with an electric razor. Doesn’t think he would have been able to do it with — do they still call it this? — a safety razor. His mother said, watching him once, “You can do it better than me because you’re a man and you know a man’s face. I’d be afraid.” She did, last few years of his father’s life, give him haircuts and shave the back of his neck with a special attachment on the electric razor. Sits on the bed and starts to dress. Socks from the floor. Doesn’t usually start with them, but does today. Then thinks Maybe get a fresh pair. Smells the one in his hand. No smell, but the bottom’s dirty and he must have sweated a lot in them yesterday, and he takes off the one he put on and opens the top dresser drawer. Black or white, that’s his choice. Both are all cotton, but the white’s more an athletic sock and never as tight, and takes out a pair and puts them on. Smells yesterday’s shirt at one armpit. Stinks, and he opens the bottom dresser drawer where all his shirts are. Actually, the tank tops are in the top. There are several long-sleeve T-shirts, black and navy blue and all of them cotton, and he takes out a black one because the material’s lighter and smoother than the blue, and puts it on. Opens the three middle drawers, which her things are still in, and quickly closes them. Why’d he open them? Doesn’t know. Impulse. Wasn’t looking for anything. Got a whiff of her perfume in the most middle drawer, but that wasn’t why he opened it. That’ll always be her smell, more than anything. Thought of something like that last night. Can’t imagine what he’d do if he started up with a new woman sometime and she wore that same perfume. That’s a scene for a short story. He’d say to her next time not to and tell her why. Anybody would understand. Or he wouldn’t say. He’d just fantasize. Might be nice. If he’d be seeing that woman he thinks he’d eventually be sleeping with her, that’s how it’s always been, and if she had on that perfume in bed? What’s he going into? That he’d make love with another woman? Sure, one day, he’d want to, but a long ways from today. Not a long ways from wanting to but from doing it. Hard to imagine, too. Actually, not hard at all. Naked, feeling each other, kissing, hugging, sucking, breasts, cunt, pubic hair, going down on each other, or just him on her — anything to get him excited — sticking it in? How do you first get to bed, though? You’re at either of your places and drinking and kissing and maybe feeling and one of you, as Gwen did to him, says “Think we should go to bed?” That’s all it took. After that it gets much easier, or used to. But it might never happen again with him. Not just because of the way he is now, his depression, if that’s what it is. And his predisposition to solitude — well, he was always like that a little — that might last and even, longer he cuts himself off from people, get worse. But his age, primarily, and what he’d call his wariness or even his fright at getting involved enough with someone new to make love with, and so on. “And so on” what? Other things he hasn’t thought of, and maybe not so much the ones he gave. So then what? Just jerking off for the rest of his life? Buying girlie magazines, raunchier the better? Those vacant faces in them, those beautiful bodies? Going into a convenience store — parking in front just to buy the magazine — and taking one off the rack and paying for it and getting back change? Doesn’t see himself doing that. Did before he met Gwen, once or twice a year when he wasn’t living with a woman, but never felt comfortable doing it, and now? But he’ll have to, won’t he? What other way? Subscribe? How do you, and he’d just want one issue, not one mailed to him every month. He’d keep it under some shirts in his dresser drawer, wouldn’t use it all the time, because how many times could he do it to the same nudes before he gets tired of them? But maybe the photos are so graphic now, and there are so many different nudes in each issue and a wide variety of poses, that one issue would be good for a year or so and almost every time. Because how often would he jerk off? Once a week? More likely, every other week? Has seen them in those stores. Band around them or shrink-wrapped, so you couldn’t open them at the stand. Lingerie issue. Back-to-College issue. Summer Girls. They have to be a lot more revealing than they were thirty years ago. Has a hard-on but not a full one. Not the first he’s had since she died but the first that’s come while he was awake and thinking about sex. Plays with it a little but with no thought of ejaculating. Just curious. Doesn’t get harder or larger and he didn’t think it would, and stops. Not while his daughters are still here. Think of something else. Finish getting dressed. He’s thirsty and a little hungry too. Did he eat yesterday? Knows he drank. He ate. Little. Baby carrots. A cracker. Piece of cheese. Some celery sticks. He’s not starving. And less he eats, less he’ll need to shit. Should suggest to them they take whatever they want of hers from the dresser and closets. And dishes and pots and pans and cookbooks and cutlery they might be able to use and artwork she owned before she knew him and stuff she bought after they married. Antique goose decoy on the fireplace mantel and several smaller ones of ducks around the house. Miniature Russian icon triptych her parents gave her and her first husband when they got married, but maybe that’s too valuable. Also on the manteclass="underline" two tiny porcelain figurines in a bell jar she got at a silent auction in Maine. He likes that piece. “The old couple seems so happily married and physically right for each other,” he once said to her, “I can’t think of looking at them without thinking of us,” so maybe he’ll keep that one too, and the kids move around a lot and the bell jar would be too fragile to travel. Binoculars she observed birds with from her study here and apartment they had on Riverside Drive and desk in Maine. Victorian candlestick he gave her for her birthday a half year after they met. So many things. Too many for one person living alone. Wants to clear out half the house. Furniture and linen if they need some in their cities. But senses it’s too soon for them. They even said so, so why harp on it? He knows how they feel. They feel the way he does. And he’s sure they have enough reminders of her for now. Fresh boxer shorts. The old ones he didn’t have to smell. Thinks it’s been two days, and after he zips up or just pulls up his pants if he’s been sitting on the toilet he frequently pisses or drips a little into the shorts. Pants off the chair. Nah, get your sweatpants. Be comfortable, and no pants are more comfortable, and he hangs these up on a hook in the closet and gets the sweats out and puts them on. Sneakers. Fresh handkerchief. Two ballpoint pens in one side pants pocket and memobook in the other. Doesn’t need his watch because he knows he’s not going anywhere today. Starts out of the room with his dirty clothes. His glasses. How could he have forgotten? And goes back and puts them on and goes into the kitchen and drops the clothes into the washing machine. Some of the kids’ clothes are in it and a tablecloth and dish towels. Tablecloths they should also take. Doesn’t know why Gwen had so many, because they almost always, when they had guests for dinner, used the same green and yellow one from India with matching cloth napkins. On the dryer next to the washing machine’s a note from Maureen. “Hi Daddy. We hope you slept well. We’ll be sleeping late unless you need us for anything. We’ve been meaning to tell you. We have Mommy’s cell phone if you want to start using it. It’s part of