His Wife Leaves Him

nothing, talk under my breath against you, ever. I’ll be sweet and kind and good-natured and sympathetic and everything like that to you,’ I should’ve said, ‘if only you’ll not divorce me. I’ll be a much more agreeable person all around, you’ll see, and it’ll be real, not put on. I know how despicably I’ve behaved to you in the past,’ I should’ve said, ‘and I plan to change all that and be nothing but good and helpful to you from now on.’ Those are some of the things I should’ve said. What in God’s name stopped me? How did our marriage get so bad that we separated and then divorced and I ended up with this woman I don’t want to marry but have promised to? Where did I even meet her? She just appeared, and next thing I knew I was living with her, and then engaged, with the wedding set for next month.” Just then he sees Gwen driving down the street in a cream-colored sports car. Her wheelchair’s folded up in the back seat, its wheels sticking up and spinning. He goes into the street and waves his arms at her and yells “Gwen, Gwen, stop.” She pulls over to about a foot from the curb — he has to jump back onto the sidewalk or be hit by the car — and says “You. I thought I’d seen the last of you. Why did you flag me down? What are you doing in this city? Are you stalking me? Why did I ever stop for you, the last person on earth I’d want to meet?” “Gwen, you got to listen to me. I’m doing something really stupid. I’m marrying someone who’ll assure my constant unhappiness for the rest of my life. She’s all wrong for me, intellectually, morally, socially, physically. Even her clothes are ugly, her hair’s always unkempt, and she’s a tyrant and she doesn’t like kids. She had to have forced me into getting engaged to her, though I don’t remember that, because I never would have agreed to it voluntarily. Maybe she has something on me that if she reveals it would ruin my life, but I have to get out of it. Only you can help. Please take me back. I want us to remarry. May I get in the car?” “Let me think about it,” she says, smiling. “Does that smile mean yes? About letting me in the car? Remarrying me? Both?” “I’m not sure,” she says. “You’re not sure if that’s what your smile meant?” “I don’t like you jilting another woman for me,” she says. “It’ll be the last time for that, I swear. You’re the only one I want to be with, and I’ll stick by you forever. No matter how sick you might become, I’ll be there for you, regardless of how hard it gets. Please give me one more chance.” “Then, yes,” she says, “get in. She unlocks the door with a button on her side and he reaches for the door handle. Before he can open the door, she guns the motor and drives off. “Wait,” he says, “wait.” He resumes walking and talking to himself. The street, which was almost deserted a few seconds ago, is crowded again. “It was so close. If only I’d got in the car before she drove off. I would’ve sat beside her and said what a great driver she is and how beautiful she looks and what a lovely dress she has on and how happy I am to be sitting next to her and that I’ll never, ever be anything but good, sweet, kind and patient to her again. ‘You’ve seen the last of your Mr. Bad Guy, I swear on a stack of Bibles to you,’ I would’ve said. Then I would’ve asked her to park in an out-of-the-way spot and when she did I would’ve kissed her eyelids and fingertips and felt her thighs and breasts and then kissed her lips and said I loved her—‘I love you’—and have never stopped loving her since I first met her, not even once. ‘I am so happy now,’ I would’ve said, ‘I could cry.’” …She’s lying in bed on her back, doesn’t seem to be breathing. “Gwen? Gwen?” he says. He listens through her dress for a heartbeat, feels her temples and wrists for a pulse. Nothing. But she’s smiling, or looks like she is, but didn’t he read somewhere that it might, soon after someone dies, have something to do with the accumulated gas inside? He pushes up her dress, shirt and bra and puts his ear to her chest. Nothing. He thought maybe all those clothes were concealing her heartbeat. He feels her chest for a heartbeat, then strokes her breasts, then kisses her nipples and thinks Why not; it’s not impossible. Nobody’s around and nobody will be coming around. Just once. If it turns out to be too difficult or disgusting, he’ll stop. He pulls off her panties, raises her legs up into a crab position, gets the lubricant tube out of her night table, squeezes lubricant on his fingers and smears it on her vagina. He unzips his fly. No, he thinks, do it the way you always do it, and keeping your pants and undershorts on will make it more difficult to get inside her. He takes off his shirt and pants and shorts, her knees have folded in so he spreads them apart again, gets on top of her and sticks his penis in. He comes very quickly. About as fast as he ever did, he thinks, or since he was in his twenties. He can’t even remember feeling anything now. Anyway, he wouldn’t have wanted it to go on much longer. He gets off the bed, wipes her vagina with his undershorts, puts her panties back on, pulls down her bra, shirt and dress. She still seems to be smiling. He puts his ear to her nose and mouth. Nothing. Maybe it is gas, he thinks, and puts his ear to her stomach but doesn’t hear anything in there. He puts his clothes back on and dials 911. “Reason for calling?” a woman says. “I’ve just done something terrible,” he says, “maybe worse than that, but definitely something most people would find disgusting. I made love to my wife after she died a natural death, probably from a stroke.” “So you’re reporting a death and the deceased is there with you now?” “Yes.” “Give me her name and address where you are and then I want you to wait there,” and he gives them though doesn’t think the house number’s right. “But you’re certain she’s dead? You a physician?” “No.” “Then I can get someone on the phone to give you instructions how to help her if she’s showing even the slightest signs of life. Just listening and feeling for her breath and pulse doesn’t tell you everything.” “She’s dead, I’m sure.” “An emergency medical team has already been dispatched and should be there in five minutes.” “There’s no rush,” he says, “although it’s true I’d like to get this over with soon as I can,” and he hangs up. The phone rings right after. It’s the same woman, he’s sure, though he has no idea what for. Let it ring, he thinks; I’ve told her everything. …He wakes up. What was that all about? he thinks. Well, it’s been awhile and he’s a bit horny, or thinks he was when he fell asleep. Could he actually do what he did in the dream? Forget it. No, could he? If she were in bed right now and just died or within the last hour or so, maybe less, and nobody was around and there was no possibility of anyone interrupting him, he might. He could. One last time. He thinks so. Probably, yes. And then do everything he did: wipe, re-dress her, etcetera, call 911. …They’re in a cabin in Alaska or somewhere far north. He looks out the window. Snow all around — fifteen-to-twenty-foot drifts in some places and pine trees, or some kind of evergreen, that might be a hundred feet tall — but no other cabins and no roads. The cabin’s next to a body of water that isn’t frozen. Looks like an ocean or huge lake or could even be a very wide river whose opposite bank is too far away to see. Doesn’t understand sea ice and currents and the warming effects of the Gulf Stream, if it is an ocean, and things like that, so won’t try to explain why there isn’t even a little ice on the water. You’d think, though, he thinks…but forget it. He hears a motorboat come close to the cabin, stop for a few seconds, and then putter off. “I think our lunch has come,” he says to Gwen, who’s at the dining table typing out a new poem on a small manual typewriter. “Good,” she says, without looking up; “I haven’t eaten since breakfast and I’m starving. Why do they send it over to us so late? Artists have to eat to create.” “Oh, I’m an artist? You could’ve fooled me. But not eating doesn’t seem to have stopped you. Look at you: scribbling away like there’s no tomorrow, while I have nothing to say.” He goes outside on the deck that surrounds the cabin and walks to the end of their pier. Should’ve put a coat and cap on, he thinks, but for some reason, though the temperature must be ten below zero, he feels warm. Dry cold, it must be, but again, he doesn’t know and he’s never heard of the term “dry cold,” so he shouldn’t try to explain. And while he’s at it, what’s sea ice? Does it have anything to do with permafrost, which is big up here but he also doesn’t know what it is. Gwen would know, he thinks. She knows everything. A wicker basket, which the motorboat operator always puts their mail and lunch pails in, only has a note. “We thought you’d like this puppy,” he reads. “Kind of a cute guy, isn’t he? Hope all’s still well with you both. The staff.” But there’s no puppy. Then he sees, about thirty feet away, an enormous polar bear drinking from the lake or river or whatever it is. That’s what they think’s a puppy? he thinks. Only animal around, so must be it. He goes inside the cabin. Gwen’s sealed up an envelope and is putting stamps on it. Poem she was working on, he thinks, off to a magazine in tomorrow’s mail and he hopes a quick acceptance. She could use it. “So you finished it?” he says, and she says “Two of them, and both quite long. It’s been a very creative day.” “Well, your creativity might have to stop, even though there doesn’t seem any stopping you, because our lunch wasn’t dropped off. But the boat did leave us a puppy and a nice note. I don’t think they meant for us to kill and cook the puppy, though. Things haven’t got that bad.” “A puppy,” she says. “I’ve always wanted one.” “But you got to see it. Not your typical small dog. Color and size of a white polar bear. Maybe all polar bears are white from birth, but I don’t know of any polar bear puppy this big. Eight feet long at least. I think I once knew the name of this breed. You must know it.” She looks out the window and says “Oh, it’s so cute. I want to keep it.” “We can’t,” he says. “It’ll feed itself from what it catches in the water — that won’t be a problem — but it’s too big to bring inside.” “We won’t have to,” she says. “Look at that thick coat. It’ll stay warm outside no matter how cold it gets, and it’ll be great protection against anyone who might want to harm us. One look at this huge puppy dog — and just imagine how big it’ll be when it’s fully grown — and they’ll run away. When we leave here we have to take it with us.” “There’s no room for it in our house. Our neighbors would be frightened of it. It’d have the local dogs barking all day and night, keeping everyone awake. And suppose it gets loose, because what hidden-fence system could keep it contained? Just think what it’d then do to our garbage cans and everyone else’s. The mailman won’t come within fifty feet of our mailbox once he sees the dog. Besides, how would we transport it to our home? It can’t fit in the car. I say no and that’s what it’s going to be, no.” “You’re such a despot. You always have to have your own way. You never think what I might like,” and she goes into the other room in the cabin — their bedroom — and slams the door. “Meanwhile,” he yells, “what are we going to do about lunch? The boat’s gone. There’s no way of communicating with them because this stupid place doesn’t believe