~ ~ ~
He gets up, turns on the night table light, goes to the bathroom, pees, drinks a full glass of water from the glass there and goes back to the bedroom, plumps up two pillows, smaller fluffier one on top of the other, gets on his back in bed and rests his head in the middle of them, reaches over to turn off the light. “So, Gwen, my little sweetie, what happened next?” he says. No, he thinks, better not talk out loud. Kids could hear and knock on his door and say was he calling them, or is anything wrong? So just in his head. “Gwen, my darling sweetheart,” he says in his head, “let’s do something we never did before and that’s to have a conversation in my head. I’ll speak, I’ll keep quiet while you speak, and so on like that. You remember everything, so tell me what happened next.” “You know what happened next,” she says in his head, “if I’m sure I know what you’re referring to. You called me, didn’t hang up, let my phone ring, and I answered it.” “But what did we say? I know you must’ve said ‘Hello,’ and I must’ve followed that with ‘Hello,’ but probably ‘Hi, it’s Martin, Martin Samuels, guy from the other night at Pati Brooks’ party, but really more so at her elevator and then in front of her building.’ But I forget what happened after — what we said — except with it probably ending with my saying ‘Do you think we can meet sometime soon for a coffee or drink?’ although with my probably saying right before that ‘Well, it’s been very nice talking to you,’ and your saying something like ‘Okay,’ and we set a date, time and place. But the rest. Help me; I want to go over as much of it as I can. To sort of relive it. Our first night, or night we first met. Because of what it led to. More than twenty-seven years. Twenty-four of them married. You may have loved someone more than me — in fact, I’m almost sure you did, two guys, but I never asked; didn’t want to put you in that spot — but you never loved anyone longer. So if not for that night, nothing. No kids. No life together, which might’ve been better for you. No thousands-of-times lovemaking. No Maine. No Breakwater Inn. No Hanna Anderson. No Georges Brassens. No France in ’81. No Riverside Drive apartment. No jogging nun running past. I’m saying all those noes for me. So no a lot. And also, long as I have your ear, or have you here — they’re so much alike, but what of it, right? — tell me, and this’ll be my only aside in this talk, and it feels like a real talk, doesn’t it? other than for my nonstop monolog just now…you still there? I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t.” “I’m here. The talk feels okay: real enough in its way.” “So I was saying, my darling…asking, with that ‘tell me’ before, if you forgive me.” “You’re being so loving. The ‘sweetheart’; the ‘my darling.’” “Because I love you, why else? Do you still love me?” “Let me try to answer your tell-me question. There were, since my first stroke, so many things to forgive you for. Just as there were many things to thank you for.” “Not ‘so many’?” “Just many. Couldn’t have been easy living with someone so sick and often so helpless, and with a fatal next stroke, coming anytime anywhere, especially after the second one, looming over me. And my face, when it froze on one side for a while and my mouth got twisted. You like beauty. Without seeming immodest, I’m sure my prettiness was one of the principal reasons you went for me, and I felt I’d become too ugly for you.” “Not true. I never looked away from you. I kissed that twisted mouth.” “Not how I remember it. You kissed other places on my face.” “Other places on your body, maybe, but I definitely kissed your lips. To me, no place was off base.” “I know I had a hard time looking at myself in the mirror when I brushed my teeth or hair. I looked like old Mrs. Behrlich, do you remember her? But when she was almost a hundred and after part of her face got disfigured when she was mugged. I took you to see her twice. The last time when Rosalind was just a baby, since she was named after her.” “I forget that though now I remember it.” “But you could be sweet and I could be forgiving. I needed you. You kept me alive.” “You’re just saying that. By forgiveness, I was talking about that last night when I said such horrible things, one in particular. You heard. You know. I’m sorry. I miss you so much, something I should’ve thought of before that night: how I would. And I won’t be hurt or sink into deeper grief and self-hatred if you say you don’t forgive me. I’d deserve it. And what does it matter, right? I did what I so stupidly and viciously did and now I’m paying for it. I was out of my mind that night, not the first time but never so bad. Maybe I’d drunk too much, although neither is an excuse.” “If it’d be any comfort to you, Martin, what you say you said to me didn’t change anything. I was going to die soon — the ‘looming’—anyway. ‘Imminent’ is the word the doctor would have used if he’d thought it necessary to be truly honest with me. I’m not saying this to make you feel better. I knew I was doomed. We even spoke about it.” “No we didn’t. And you weren’t. And despite what you say, and I don’t mean to contradict you on this, you still don’t want to hurt me and in fact you do want to make me feel better. That’s nice. That’s wonderful. You’re a dreamboat and you always were. But I don’t see how, or for a very long time, I can ever feel better about anything, not just myself. But I do see through your white lie. Don’t ask me why you can’t be more convincing at it, and I’m not criticizing you for that. But you try to be, because that’s the way you are. Kind and generous. Gentle and gracious. This and that. Just about everyone said so in their condolence letters and notes. I didn’t read them — I couldn’t without falling to pieces — but the kids did, since the letters were to them too, and recounted a number of them to me. That you always wanted to make people feel good, no matter how sick or distressed you were. Your radiant smile. Your cheerful, warm disposition. Your attention to them and their lives. You lit up everything and everybody with your light, one said. Not original but nice and right. ‘She had a special luminous presence’—there’s that light again—‘and an inborn poetic spirit,’ another said. I like that one — and maybe it was ‘incandescent’—and wish I could tell you who it was from. Another was ‘A phenomenal composition of beauty and brilliance’—not ‘light’ this time—‘more than anyone I’ve known. But so relaxed with it,’ he goes on. ‘No show and never took advantage of her good looks and always played it down if someone mentioned it or remarked how smart she was.’ I know I hurried your third stroke along with what I said that night. And don’t tell me you didn’t hear what I yelled in the kitchen. Neighbors must have heard. You must have thought I was saying it more for you than me. I don’t remember the exact words, and though I’d hate doing it, I could give you a good paraphrase.” “I heard them but also can’t recall them exactly. They were unkind, that’s for certain. But I think said out of pity for my condition — so it was simply the wrong thing to say — and fear over my imminent third stroke and probable death and your frustration at not being able to save me and concern or uneasiness, or something, that you’d have nobody to take care of and you’d be living alone.” “You’re doing it again. Your generosity is hurting me more than your honesty ever could. My darling, my sweetheart, can’t we finally have it out but in the gentlest and most loving of ways?” “Better, let’s forget it for now, the time after that and maybe forever. Yes, forever. I’m beginning to get, much as you’d be surprised at this uncommon emotion in me, according to you, annoyed with this talk.” “Annoyed or disgusted?” “Do you want me to get angry too? I’ve been that. You’ve seen and heard it and despise it when it’s directed at you.