Oh, all those annoying habits of hers that I used to chafe at — the trail of crumpled tissues and empty coffee mugs she left in her wake, her disregard for the finer points of domestic order and comfort. Big deal!
Her tendency to make a little too much of her medical degree when she was meeting new people. “I’m Dr. Rosales,” she would say, instead of “I’m Dorothy,” so you could almost see the white coat even when she wasn’t wearing one. (Not that she actually met new people all that often. She had never seen the purpose in socializing.)
And those orthopedic-type shoes she had favored: they had struck me, at times, as self-righteous. They had seemed a deliberate demonstration of her seriousness, her high-mindedness — a pointed reproach to the rest of us.
I liked to dwell on these shortcomings now. It wasn’t only that I was wondering why they had ever annoyed me. I was hoping they would annoy me still, so that I could stop missing her.
But somehow, it didn’t work that way.
I wished I could let her know that I’d kept vigil in the hospital. I hated to think she might have felt she was going through that alone.
And wouldn’t she have been amused by all these casseroles!
That was one of the worst things about losing your wife, I found: your wife is the very person you want to discuss it all with.
The TV infiltrated my sleep, if you could call this ragged semiconsciousness sleep. I dreamed the war in Iraq was escalating, and Hillary Clinton was campaigning for the Democratic nomination. I rolled over on the remote control and someone all at once shouted, “… this stainless-steel, hollow-ground, chef-quality …,” by which time I was sitting bolt upright in my bed, my eyes popping and my heart pounding and my mouth as dry as gauze. I turned off the TV and lay flat again. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth: Go to sleep, damn it.
You would think I’d have dreamed about Dorothy, but I didn’t. The closest I came to it was the whiff of isopropyl alcohol that I hallucinated from time to time as I finally drifted off again. She had carried that scent home on her skin at the end of every workday. Early in our marriage I used to have vivid dreams about childhood doctor visits and vaccinations and the like, evoked by the alcohol scent as I lay sleeping next to her. Now the ghost of it brought me sharply awake, and once or twice I even spoke her name aloud: “Dorothy?”
But I never got an answer.
The casseroles started thinning out and the letters stopped. Could people move on that easily? Yes, well, of course. New tragedies happened daily. I had to acknowledge that.
It seemed heartless that I should think to go in for my semiannual dental checkup, but I did. And then I bought myself some new socks. Socks, of all things! So trivial! But all my old ones had holes in the toes.
One evening my friend Nate called — WEISS N I on my caller ID. Him I picked up for. Right off I said, “Nate! How’ve you been?” without waiting for him to announce himself. But that was evidently a mistake, because I caught a brief hesitation before he said, “Hello, Aaron.” Very low-voiced, very lugubrious; not at all his usual style.
“How about a game tomorrow?” I asked him.
“Pardon?”
“A game of racquetball! I’m turning into an old man here. All my joints are rusting.”
“Well, ah, but … I was calling to invite you to dinner,” he said.
“Dinner?”
“Yes, Sonya was saying we ought to have you over.”
Sonya must be his wife. I had never met his wife. I suppose he must have mentioned her from time to time, but we didn’t have that kind of friendship. We had a racquetball friendship. We’d gotten acquainted at the gym.
I said, “Over to … to your house, you mean?”
“Right.”
“Well, gosh, Nate, I don’t know. I don’t even know where you live!”
“I live in Bolton Hill,” he said.
“And also I just … It’s been really busy at work lately. You wouldn’t believe how busy. I barely have time for a sandwich, and then, when I do find time, there is so much extra food in the fridge, these — these — these casseroles and these … cheesecakes. It’s practically a full-time job just to g-g-get it all d-d-d — just to eat it!”
“I see,” he said.
“But thanks.”
“That’s okay.”
“Tell Sonya I appreciate the thought.”
“Okay.”
I wanted to revisit the racquetball idea, but after I’d made such a point of being busy I figured that would be a mistake. So I just told him goodbye.
Not half an hour later, the phone rang again. This time it was TULL L. I answered, but I was warier now. All I said was, “Hello?”
“Hi, Aaron, it’s Luke.”
“Hi, Luke.”
“I can understand why you might prefer not to go to Nate’s.”
“Excuse me?”
“He told me you’d turned down his invitation.”
I said, “You’re talking about Nate Weiss.”
“Why, yes.”
“You know Nate Weiss?”
“We met in the hospital waiting room, remember? When we both stopped by to visit.”
This had been happening a lot lately. I swear I had no recollection that either one of them had stopped by, let alone that they’d met each other. But I said, “Oh. Right.”
“He says he got the impression you’re not up yet for coming to dinner.”
“No, but racquetball …” I said. “I’m itching for a good game of racquetball.”
There was a pause. Then Luke said, “Unfortunately, I don’t know how to play racquetball.”
“Oh.”
“But I was thinking: if getting together with wives and such is too much to handle just now—”
“Oh, no. Lord, no,” I said briskly. “Doesn’t faze me in the least.”
Another pause. Then he said, “I was thinking you could come to the restaurant instead.”
He meant his restaurant, which was how we’d been introduced, back in the era of The Beginner’s Book of Dining Out. I said, “Well, that’s a good idea, Luke. Maybe sometime in the—”
“Just you and me and Nate; just us guys. No wives. We could have an early supper, and then you could head on home whatever time you felt like. How about it?”
I didn’t want to do that, either, but what could I say? It was nice of him to make the effort. It was nice of both of them. I doubted I would have done as much if I had been in their place. I was more the “Let’s move on” type. The “Maybe if I don’t mention your loss, you’ll forget it ever happened” type.
I kind of wished they were that type, to be honest.
But okay: might as well get this over with. I met them directly after work the next evening, a rainy, blowy Tuesday in mid-September. It had been pouring all day, and driving conditions were terrible. On top of that, I had trouble finding a parking space. By the time I walked into the restaurant (white linens, wide-planked floors, a certain worn-around-the-edges friendliness), Nate and Luke were already seated at a table. They made an unlikely pair. Nate looked very sleek and dark and professional in his black lawyer-suit, whereas Luke was one of those all-one-color, beige-hair-beige-skin types in shabby khakis, going a little soft around the middle. They seemed to be having no trouble finding things to talk about, though, if you judged by the way they’d set their heads together. I had the distinct impression that it was me they were talking about. How to deal with me, what topics would be safe to discuss with me. I’d barely pulled my chair out before Nate asked, “What about this weather, hey?” in a sprightly tone I wasn’t familiar with. And Luke rode right over the tail of that with “You been following the Orioles?”