His Wife Leaves Him

s 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 a group plan. You must know that. You’ve been paying for it for years. It allowed the three of us, when Mommy was alive, to call each other anytime of the day for free. The phone’s being recharged now in Roz’s room. But we have to warn you. It has Mommy’s voice on it. Just her saying her name when the automated voice says she’s not available and your message has been forwarded to an automated voice message machine. If you do want her phone, and we hope so because that would mean Roz and I would be able to talk to you more, we’d like to keep Mommy’s voice on it. Do you mind? We think it would be nice to hear Mommy every time we call you and the message system picks up. Love from Roz and me. Maureen.” He writes under her note “Dear Maureen. I would like to take over Mommy’s phone. I wasn’t aware of the cell phone message — I suppose I should’ve assumed so — but if you both want to keep it on, fine with me. I’d get upset hearing her speak myself. But there’s no reason that should happen unless I call the cell phone just to hear her voice, which I don’t see myself ever doing. Love, Dad.” Then thinks But what’s with this note business? He’ll tell them all this when he sees them, and tears up the note and sticks the pieces into the recycle bag next to the trash can. It’s almost full. Later he’ll stuff all the paper down in it so they won’t blow around when he brings it outside to the carport, and open up another bag by the can. Looks through the kitchen door. Could have just looked at the inside light switch by the door. Outside lights have been turned off. Now he remembers. Her mother kept giving her tablecloths, ones she brought with her from Russia and others she bought here for Gwen, and she said she didn’t have the heart to tell her she already had more than she could use. “The kids will take them,” and he said “Don’t count on it. Most are a little dowdy.” Her cameras. Two very good ones. She liked taking pictures of birds, especially hummingbirds at the various feeders if she could get her camera quick enough, and flowers and the star magnolia in bloom and their cats. Those he thinks the kids will want to take when they leave. They’re not as personal as most of the other things he mentioned, and a number of times they needed a good camera to take pictures a photo lab would turn into slides of their work. Doubts he’ll be taking pictures anymore. Took a lot of them of the kids and her, in Maine, mostly with cheap throwaway cameras. Plenty of her alone too, even though she never wanted him to, when she was still healthy. How could he not? She always looked so great in them. And those Polaroid nude shots of her — how’d he ever get her to let him? — when she was seven months pregnant with Rosalind, ones he ended up with only one good one of and she said she tore up. Maybe she didn’t and only threatened to and then forgot about it. One day he’ll look for it and the two or three others he took that time and which were too dark and blurry to see anything and would probably, if they survived, be worse now. Go through all the boxes and file drawers in her study she kept most of their photos in. They’re certainly not in any of the albums. Didn’t he think this last night? Yes, but not that they might still be around. Wishes he’d taken a few of her nude when she wasn’t pregnant. Standing facing him. Sitting in a chair like an artist model — that’s how he could have worded it to her. Lying on the bed or couch with her back or front to him. But he knows she wouldn’t have let him if he’d asked. But he should have asked. What a dope that he didn’t. “They’re Polaroids,” he would have said. “Nobody will see them but me.” “What do you want them for?” she might have said. “You have me,” and he would have said “For when I’m away.” Well, he didn’t know things would turn out like this. Her feeling, he thinks, was that her body in the pregnant photos no way resembled hers, which is why she went along with the two or three she let him take. He thinks she even said something like that. “I’m unrecognizable. Look at my breasts and stomach and from what I can see of my buttocks. Even my face is a bit bloated and my thighs seem fatter too, though I suppose everything but my breasts will go back to the way they were before.” Anyway, he doesn’t know how to use either of her cameras, or even load them. She showed him once, but he’s long forgot. I’ll never remember,” he said. “I like simple cameras.” So he’ll insist the kids take them. “They’re wasted here,” he’ll say. “And you each can use one, and it won’t take you anything to learn how. I’m sure you have friends who’ll show you. If there’s film still in the cameras, just develop them and send me the ones you think I might find interesting. I’m sure there’s none of Mom. And while we’re at it,” he’ll say, “maybe you can take back with you a lot of the photographs too. Help me to start getting rid of things.” Opens the dishwasher. Nothing in it. All the dishes and such from yesterday have been washed and put away. Good. They did everything right. Countertops even look cleaned. Not a crumb. Opens the refrigerator. Plenty of food in it in plastic containers and bowls covered by saucers and plates. He never had plastic wrap — the environment — and Gwen agreed they didn’t need it. And then the stuff that’s always in there. So, plenty for them, and if there isn’t there what they want for breakfast and lunch they can take his car and get it. He’ll give them money or say “Use the credit card you have of mine.” They’ll probably want to go for coffee at the nearby Starbucks on North Charles as they do almost every morning when they’re here together, and ask him if he wants to join them, and he’ll say “Not today and maybe not tomorrow. I don’t know when. But enjoy yourselves and use the credit card I gave you for anything you want there,” and they might say they have their own credit cards. The one they have of his is only for plane and train fares and taxis late at night and emergencies, and he’ll say “While you’re here, everything should be on me. That’s what Mommy would want for you too.” Or maybe not the last. Sleek seems to have been taken care of before they went to bed. Still plenty of kibble in his food bowl and water bowl’s full almost to the top. All the cat food on the saucer’s been eaten. They may have even given him some sliced turkey and other deli meat that was out there. He gets the saucer off the floor and washes it with the scrub side of the sponge and puts it in the dish rack by the sink. Only thing in the dish rack; not even a spoon. That’s how thorough they were, and dish rack mat’s been cleaned too. He’ll open a can of cat food — didn’t see an opened one in the refrigerator, but he might have missed it it was so crowded in there — and spoon half a can of it onto the saucer next time he sees Sleek. If the wet food’s been out there too long — a half-hour, an hour — he won’t eat it. Thinks he hasn’t seen him since yesterday, and then not much. Could he be outside? The girls wouldn’t have let him out at night intentionally. But he has a way of scooting out the door when you open it without you seeing him. And some days he lets him in and out so much he doesn’t know if he’s out or in. Gwen used to ask him “You see Sleek?” and he’d say “Cat makes me dizzy. I don’t know if the last time I saw him was when I let him in the house or let him out, I have to do both for him so much.” Maybe he’s sleeping somewhere or just keeping to himself. Sleek loved Gwen — he could say that about a cat? He swears it sometimes seemed he was looking adoringly at her — and it’s possible he knows she’s dead and misses her deeply. Sleek came into the room when she was being lifted onto the gurney by the Emergency people that last time — the door was closed till then — and sniffed at all their shoes and the wheels of the gurney and then ran out of the room and hid somewhere in the house till that evening. When she was sick in bed with the flu or a bad cold or worse or was just reading or resting, he’d lie beside her and raise a front paw with the claws out and hiss at anyone who ca