She had sent him another photograph; the baby, who sat in her lap, wearing a plaid skirt, must have been about ten months. What if he and Victoria had had children? He remembered her eidetically from the time when she had been his sweetheart. In this family photograph (already time-stained on the back — a blotchy scarlet like some rare lichen), she failed to resemble the girl he had loved. Her blonde hair had thinned a trifle and taken on a reddish tint — the color of the three children’s hair. Although she had lost her baby fat, her face remained unwrinkled. Had she owned so many freckles at seventeen? She was smiling, and he liked her cheekbones very much. He assumed the person at whom she was smiling to be her husband. She and the children were sitting on the steps of a suburban house, evidently gazing into the sun, because she was squinting, as was the middle child, who was grimacing, clutching his toy spaceship. The baby was clenching her fat white little fists, staring sideways at the eldest boy, whose eyes were also narrowed against the light but was seeking in sweet submission to look into the photographer’s eyes. Victoria’s expression could have been read as happiness or compliance. She wore green. With the infant on her lap and the two others on either side of her, drawn in by her pleasantly pale hands, she concealed most of her body from him in this image, which no doubt she had chosen for just that reason; she had stepped out on her husband, but innocuously, careful to assert her familial self. Had the husband discovered who had received this photograph, he could at least have told himself that Victoria was not alone in it; moreover, her collar came up nearly to her chin. She wore white crescent earrings. No, she did look happy! She was the center of a young, healthy and prosperous family. Now she was a skeleton, or ashes. You will not be aware of this, said another letter, but it is the anniversary of my mastectomy and I am supposed to be happy that I survived and all of that.
Now with the mourners and other regular people gone, the front gate locked, the crows returned to the cemetery grass, watching him sidelong through their metallic ring-eyes. In case there might be a watchman, he hid inside the bell-cupola of the Bartlett mausoleum. The moon emerged suddenly, much as illnesses, realizations and heartbreaks so often do; so that it was now time to call up Victoria. How welcoming would she be? Sometimes in that last year he used to telephone Luke to see how well he was enduring, imagining that he was performing some virtuous duty, only to discover that Luke was bored with talking, or with him. Why shouldn’t this be worse?
From his shirt pocket he withdrew the card through whose means she had first reestablished communication: distantly formal, and as haughty as ever — how he would have hated to be married to her! You, for all I know, do not remember me. But, I think you remember at least a little. That was Victoria for you — certain of her effect. I’ve always felt bad for snubbing you so awfully. There were extenuating parenting and adolescent circumstances, but I was very horrible. I’m sure you would have been dumped (or vice versa) but later I learned to do it and accept it with some small degree of grace. The next lay tidily folded in its envelope, with a cancelled twenty-nine-cent stamp of wild columbine: Even though I have been thoroughly faithful in every possible way, Ryan, I think, lives in fear he’ll lose me to something: a cause, a job, another man, and I’ll bet you liked it that way, didn’t you, Victoria? The third was typed singlespaced and went on for several pages. She had confessed to calling him and then hanging up. There are probably unresolved feelings for you that probably contributed to my feeling embarrassed. Please be flattered. I don’t have feelings for many people — at least, not embarrassing feelings! I think it is ridiculous that there has to be closure for every relationship, friend, choice. Yes, you would think that. No wonder you hated to die. I can’t tell if you mind questions. I think that in fact you do. I hope this reaches you before you are gone again to find your cigarette stand girl. How were the polar bears? The cold north, it sounds very appealing to an ice princess like me.
I dislike other people’s children but they like me because I treat them well and feed them and bring goldfish to class.
The moon resembled a marble wreath when he poured the liquid onto Victoria’s grave.
Her smile was a flower without scent. He felt more saddened than beguiled.
When he came home, he took his pain pills and pored over the moon map. Then he read two or three of her oldest letters. Playfully, the cancer flexed its fingers within his entrails. Taking up a pen, he began to write a reply, for practice, so that he would know what he ought to say to her.
The second time he visited, worn down by the sweaty brightness of his summer evenings, Victoria was sitting on her tomb, in one of those midlength skirts which had been in fashion when she was seventeen, with her white hands in her lap and her knees shining like moonlight. She had combed her hair just so over her shoulders; he had never seen her so formal. She gazed straight ahead.
You must have suffered so much, he said.
Don’t speak of it.
He thought her way of expressing herself old-fashioned. — Do you mean it still hurts you? he said.
Actually, I guess it doesn’t make any difference now.
The last time I called you, the nurse said you were too weak to talk. And then I didn’t know for a long time. I was afraid to disturb your family. But I could imagine your physical agony, and the emotional agony of leaving your children behind—
She turned half away.
Has he remarried?
I think those questions are intrusive, said Victoria.
Which ones?
Any of them. I’m not asking you any.
I did notice that. Come to think of it, maybe you don’t know if he—
You believe that I don’t want to know anything about you.
Or maybe that you know everything you care to. Can the dead read minds or see the future?
I’ve learned not to force any issue, said Victoria.
Why should that be such a secret? he demanded, which he would never have done at seventeen.
Surprisingly, she smiled at him.
He said: Next time I’ll bring you flowers.
You’re having a bad year, aren’t you? said Victoria.
You could say that.
You think you used to love your life, but you never did.
How do you know?
I’m not in a position to complain about anything.
Not with a marble slab on your chest! he replied, meaning to be wry but merely achieving bitterness.
Sometimes it hurts me. It’s the heaviest thing I ever had to bear.
I’m sorry. You’re having a bad time, too. Should I get you out of there?
It wouldn’t do any good. But flowers, flowers would be nice—
What kind would you like? I never got you any before, so I don’t know.