She was annoyed as she read the letter. In her attempt to be light when writing to Helen, she had given Helen a distorted picture. It was not a “marital vacation.” It was a sudden queerness in David, a hint of breakdown.
It was then that the phone rang.
“Mrs. David Sherrel, please.”
“This is she.”
“I have a long distance call for you from Sarasota, Florida. Go ahead, please.”
Dim male voice blurred by miles, distorted by a jangling hum. “David?” she said eagerly. “David, is that you?” And as she asked, she could remember the last few lines of the letter she had written him. Lines she had worked over very carefully: “Please know that I try to understand to the extent that it is within my capacity to understand. I know that you feel this is important to you. If it is important to you, it is also important to me, darling. But please write to me. I think I deserve that much. I think you owe me that much, David. You have always had imagination. Think of what it would be like to be me and to be here and not know.”
“David!” she cried to the blurred phone. “I can’t hear you!”
“Please hang up,” the operator said, “and I will try to get a better connection.”
She hung up and sat by the phone and waited. She wanted to hear him say he was coming home, that this frightening thing that had separated them was over.
When it rang again she snatched it quickly. “David?”
“No m’am. My name is... Police Department... phone number in his wallet.”
“Police? What’s wrong? Is my husband in trouble?”
“Sorry to have to tell you this, Miz Sherrel, but your husband is dead. We got to get a legal identification on him, and I guess you ought to come down here. Hello. Hello? Miz Sherrel? Operator! Operator! We’ve been cut...”
“I’m still here,” Virginia said in a voice that sounded not at all like her own. It sounded cool and formal and controlled. “I’ll fly down. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” The man started to say something but she heard only the first few words before she hung up.
In the first few moments there was the shock, and then there was the sense of inevitability, so strong and sure that she wondered that she had not known at once when the phone had rung — she wondered that she had been so naive as to expect to hear David’s voice.
She phoned the airline and made a reservation on a flight leaving at five minutes of two. She rinsed the breakfast things, packed, closed the apartment, cashed a check, picked up her ticket and, after a short wait at Tampa International, she was in Sarasota at a little after eight in the evening. It was a still night, very hot. People walked slowly in the heat.
The man she talked to was large, soft-voiced, gentle. He had her sit down, and he told her what happened. “Your husband had been staying at a place called the Taine Motor Lodge, out on the North Trail. He hadn’t been making any trouble or anything, but he was acting kind of peculiar and Mrs. Strickie, she’s the manager out there, she was sort of keeping an eye on him. She’s got efficiencies out there. She noticed his car was in front of his place yesterday, and he didn’t go out in the evening, and this morning she got thinking about it and knocked on his door about eight and, when she didn’t get any answer, she used her key and went in and backed right out again, the gas was so thick, and called us right away. We got it aired out and he was on the kitchen floor, and this note here was on the table.”
She took the note and read it: “Ginny— It just wasn’t any use. It just didn’t do any good. I’m sorry.” It wasn’t signed.
“Is that his handwriting?” The questioning voice came from far away, echoing through a long metal pipe. She swayed on the chair, didn’t answer. The man went away and came back with a paper cup. She took it, lifted it, smelled the raw whiskey, drank it down.
She gave the cup back to him. “That’s his writing.”
“It checks out that he did it about midnight. Was his health bad?”
“No. He was in good health.”
“Money trouble?”
“No. He had a good job. He was on a leave of absence.”
“What kind of work did he do?”
“He was in the radio and television department of a large advertising agency.”
“Any children?”
“No. No children.”
“You know of any reason why he did it, Miz Sherrel?”
“Not... exactly. I think it was some kind of a breakdown. His work was very demanding. He felt that he had to get away for a little while. He thought that would help.”
“If you feel up to it, we can go over and take a look at him now and get that part over with. If you don’t feel like it, it can wait until morning.”
“I’m all right. We can do it now.”
And so it was done. David was gone. The body seemed to be the body of a stranger. It was familiar to her in contour, in the shape of each feature, but no longer known to her. They went back, and the man gave her the keys to the car. David’s things were packed in the car. She found a place to stay. The next morning she made the arrangements about cremation. Then she placed a call to Jim Dillon in New York, their lawyer, a classmate of David.
“Jim? This is Ginny. I’m calling from Sarasota.”
“That’s what the operator said. What are you doing down there, girl? How’s Dave?”
“David killed himself, Jim. They found the body yesterday morning. I flew down.”
“He what? Ginny! My God, why? Why did he do that?”
“I don’t think we’ll ever know. Jim, I need your help.” “Anything, Ginny. You know that. I think I could even come down there if...”
“No. No, thanks, Jim. I just don’t feel like coming right back and facing... everything. I suppose there are legal things that have to be taken care of. There’s the deposit box and things like that. There’s a will in it.”
“How big will the estate be?”
“Maybe thirty thousand. Somewhere around there. Then there’s the insurance. The policies are in the box.”
“Have you got money now? If you had a joint checking account, you won’t be able to write checks against it.”
“I have my own checking account. There’s enough in it for now, Jim. I just want to stay down here for a while. I don’t know how long.”
“How about the funeral?”
“I... I don’t think there’ll be any. He wanted to be cremated. I’m having that done. I’m going to phone his sister in Seattle and phone my parents. Maybe when I come back, I can arrange some sort of memorial service, but I don’t know about that yet. Can you do everything that has to be done?”
“Of course. Give me your address there. I’ll send stuff for your signature.”
She told him where she was staying. He told her how shocked and sorry he was, questioned her as to whether it was wise for her to be alone just at this time. He said he would inform the agency and let their friends know. She said she would write a note to some of the people. After they finished talking, she made the other two phone calls. They were both bad calls to make. When she talked to her parents, she was barely able to dissuade her mother from coming down.
“But what are you going to do. Virginia? Why are you staying there?”
“I have some thinking to do, Mother.”
“You can think anywhere. You can come here and stay with us and think here. This seems so insane.”