The Widow’s Husband Read online

  “First, though, maybe you should see to the lawn, it’s in a growing spurt. Don’t let it get away from you.” Amy fixes me with a steely look. “Another thing, Mom …”

  “Yes, honey, what?” I begin to shake all over again.

  “You’ve got to change the answering machine. It’s weird to call up and get Dad. Put a new message on it.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  So Amy takes me into the den, punches some buttons, and tells me when to talk. After a few tries, I achieve a sentence without a giggle or a sigh, or an “uh.” Another piece of Emmett erased, another part of him gone. But I am pleased, and after Amy leaves, I replay my message, relishing the sound of my own voice. As if I am a real person.

  I suppose what Amy says about a breakdown is true. Eventually, I’ll get over Emmett’s death; I’ll recover. And I do have to do the lawn. I will develop calluses, and a relationship with wheelbarrow and shovel, to paraphrase the line from Emmett’s poem. I will become functional, able to cope. But for the present, I am relieved to have Amy gone so I can go back to the silence of the house and to my search for myself and for Emmett, the man to whom I’d been married for more than half my life.

  I sift his belongings for clues. After rummaging through his desk, I go through his clothes, the pockets in his jackets, his pants. I find a theater ticket stub from a movie house I’m sure I’ve never been to. A single stub. If he’d gone with someone, wouldn’t there be two stubs? I can’t decide, can’t tell. Otherwise, I find nothing incriminating, or enlightening. Just bits of debris, pocket fluff, shreds of paper, tag ends of this or that.

  I try to reconstruct his evenings, his time at home. He’d been either out in the garage, or in his La-Z-Boy. I go through its cushions, find only odd change, hair from PawPaw—the cat has now adopted Emmett’s chair—and lint. I push the cat out, sit down deep as Emmett had been wont to do, flop back, put my feet up, my arms out on its arms, where Emmett’s arms had been. I smell it, the cold Naugahyde, catch a whiff of the stuff he’d used on his hair … and that odd greenish spicy scent that clung to the red-haired woman at the reception. I leap from the chair, from the room, thinking no, I’m imagining this, I’m farther gone that I’d thought. I have built a case against Emmett on pure air, on circumstantial evidence … but what about those earrings? That poetry? What about the travel brochure in his desk? What about the brochure from Mazda? The envelope from the attorney specializing in “family law”? The Victoria’s Secret ad? What about … what about …

  So I go around again. Until I investigate his nightstand.

  I’d always respected his privacy; even now I’m suffused with a sense of prying as I slide open, quietly, as if he’ll hear, the top drawer. I find a mishmash of his junk—belts, wallets, flashlights: Emmett had been a flashlight freak. I find clothes brushes, extra eyeglasses of an outdated prescription. His camera, obsolete, the kind that required operating a light meter. A framed photo of the three of us—me, Emmett, Amy—taken years earlier. Isn’t this the picture he’d kept on his desk at the plant? I sit there, frozen, studying it.

  It had been taken on Amy’s fourteenth birthday. We were in the park, celebrating both the birthday and the removal of Amy’s braces. Amy’s smile is wide, challenging; she’d been almost belligerent with happiness. She’s always dangerous when happy.

  My own smile is tentative, shy. I’d been proud of the birthday cake, iced in pink and white swirls to resemble the petals of a rose. The idea had come from Sunset, a magazine I’d once read like a Bible. I’d been proud of Amy, too: my rose, my masterpiece. Emmett smiles as well. That is, his mouth stretches into a grin, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s not enjoying, or perhaps not approving of the party. I sit between Amy and Emmett, stiff and tense. My posture, my expression pleads, “Please, my two dears, please be sweet to each other, at least for today.” Because from the time Amy entered her teens, she’d taken Emmett on, had declared war on what she termed his rigidity, his dictatorship. I’d been caught in the middle, between these two strong people. Even now, looking at this picture, I fill with resentment. Why hadn’t they been able to get along? Why, if I’m right and this is the photo from the plant, had Emmett chosen it to put on his desk? Maybe he’d suffered from some twisted sense of duty, of obligation, that forced him to stare at his two unsatisfactory women. Surely he hadn’t enjoyed looking at it. Surely he hadn’t wanted to remind himself in the workplace of his problem women at home. Perhaps there had been a darker motivation: he’d wanted to rationalize his misbehavior, if there had been misbehavior, which now seems likely.

  If that is so, why, then, had he brought it home? Had he substituted a photo of someone else?

  I wonder who snapped the picture, because the three of us are in it. Exasperated, I put it back and shut the drawer.

  In the second drawer are stacks of monogrammed handkerchiefs, out-of-style ties, and his jewelry box. His jewelry box. It’s a tri-fold affair, and tucked in one of the slots meant for cufflinks and tie tacks I find his wedding ring. It’s a plain gold band, a twin to mine except mine is set with an emerald that had belonged to his family. Engraved inside his ring, and mine, are the letters EM and PM; around them twine the word love. A year or so earlier, he’d reported it lost after a repair job on the washer.

  I ponder this discovery. If he’d intended to leave me, wouldn’t he have in fact discarded his ring? Just as easy to toss it down the storm drain out front as to hide it in his nightstand. That he’d taken it off but kept it seems to point to an indecisiveness, a wavering of resolve. Had he thought he might “find” it again, and return to being a ring-wearing married man? I want him back, I’d grill him about so many things! What had he been about, that husband?

  In our medicine cabinet, on his shelf, I find hidden in the dark back a hair preparation. A hair dye “especially formulated for blonds.” Why, that ridiculous man, that jerk! I am amused, and irritated. He’d been engaged in a charade. I stand there staring at the bottle thinking that this proves something. Maybe I’ll tell Amy; she’ll have a good laugh. As yet I’ve not given Amy an opening, have said nothing about what are, after all, only suspicions about that woman in the green dress at the funeral and what she’d been to Emmett. That woman who smelled of the greenish scent, who’d worn earrings exactly like Amy’s. Who drove a red Miata.

  One morning I work up enough nerve to investigate the garage. Until now, I’ve gone in it only to get the car out, or put it away. The garage smells faintly of paint, glue, sawdust—the good and proper way Emmett himself had once smelled. It had been his exclusive territory, his domain, more sacrosanct than his shelves in the medicine cabinet, or his nightstand. He’d hated for me to touch anything in it. So I am tentative as I poke through shelves, boxes, his gardening gear, miscellaneous in his rollaway tool chest. Nothing. Well, just the usual. The most incriminating item is a flamboyant calendar featuring nudes of breathtaking unreal perfection. It came from a tool rental outlet on the frontage road, and that its page is still turned to January indicates he’d not taken a special or lewd interest in the photos.

  Then I notice his cluttered workbench. So unlike Emmett, this jumble of unfinished projects. I see parts to a flagpole assembly, the brackets, bolts, the pole itself still raw wood, not yet sanded. Also, a half-constructed birdfeeder, the pieces scattered as if thrown down in a panic. In his vise, still clamped together, a right angle section of oak, the corner of what was to have been a picture frame. This, begun last August, was to display on his paneled wall a commendation from the local high school, a thank-you for his presentation at their Job Fair. He’d talked to the woodshop kids, showed them a video of employment opportunities at the plant. He’d gotten a good response.

  Then it dawns on me: his electric drill is still out, still plugged in, the drill he cleaned, wiped, boxed after each use, his sacred drill. This neglect is evidence of a precipitous state of collapse that I’d been oblivious to. I survey the wreckage, the parts and pieces of what had been an or
derly life, and think about midlife crises, middle-age angst, personality changes. He’d been undergoing turmoil, and I hadn’t known, hadn’t been aware enough to help him. Poor Emmett.

  At the same time, a part of me shouts, So what! Women go through a lot worse with their hormone thing, and they live through it without making a mess. Why hadn’t he? I’d thought of him as a solid man, a slab of granite; and he’d turned into sandstone; or rather into a glittery layered chunk of mica, fool’s gold.

  I see Emmett’s weed eater and on a whim, and exercised enough, I decide I’ll whack some weeds. The timing’s perfect: I saw old Mr. Purdy from next door drive off in his pickup, and I can work without him witnessing my ineptitude. I am prejudiced against Mr. Purdy. His pie plate from the funeral supper had been the last in the neighborhood to go home. The old coot had brought over a cheap gooey store-bought pie but had transferred it to a ceramic dish, thinking that would fool people.

  He’d been a hard guy to like. When Amy was growing up, he complained about her chalked hopscotch squares on the street, her Frisbee tossed in his yard, her bike trails through his grass. When Amy got older, he complained about loud music, about her boyfriends’ cars. Then he went out and created a mound of earth on his side of the fence, a platform to stand on while he spied on her, bikini-clad, sunbathing. At least that’s what I thought his mound was for. I told Emmett about it, but all he said was, “Let him be, he’s old, he’s lonely. Poor old guy.” Emmett, so easy on everyone else, so hard on his family.

  Yes, time to run the weed eater. After all, I conquered the bank and the intimidating little teller; I communicated with the garage mechanic, the Triple A guy, and the lawyer; the lawn equipment is my next victory. Emmett never allowed me to run the power tools, felt either that it was his job, or that I’m incapable. I don’t know which. Something else I don’t know.

  I drag the weed eater out of the garage chaos. Timidly heft it, realize it’s heavier, more awkward than I imagined. The pull cord, yes, the cord … tentatively, tug on it, pull it a few times. Nothing. More pulling, gently, then yanking with a firm hand, such a stiff balky machine needs a firm hand … savagely I yank the cord, sweating in the sudden heat. I pause for breath, push hair off my face, out of my eyes, away from my neck.

  I hear Emmett’s voice; he tells me in silky tones, with faux patience, “Here, here, not like that, like you’re killing snakes. Gently but firmly, see? feel it catch? It’s like this, it’s all in the wrist just so …” His smooth-running commentary delivered in a monotone that is all sound and no sense. Blah, blah, blah. I hear his deceptively calm but scolding words in my mind, knowing I’m erecting a barrier between myself and the machine, between myself and the world Emmett created.

  I concede that the damned thing isn’t going to run for me, which is no big surprise. There’s always the old way—the hand clippers. I fish the clippers out of the garden jumble, and head out to the back yard.

  The lawn itself looks good, large swaths still smooth as paint. However, here and there tough “natives” are standing up, announcing their presence. I’ll get to them, but first another area, one I have to look at from my cocoon in the den. It’s a ragged edge around a bed of magenta petunias, under a vine maple where the unfinished birdfeeder was to have hung. I struggle with the clippers, can’t get the blades apart due to a locking device. I push, pull, tug and tweak, to no avail.

  The sun beats straight down, a palpable ball of fire, sledge hammer heat. Sweat trickles sticky tracks down my sides. I rake stray hairs from my face, from my eyes, out from under my collar, I reposition barrettes to hold it back. I twist the clippers, prod the locking mechanism. No dice. Finally, in frustration, I stride back into the garage, fling them back into Emmett’s mess, then stomp into the house for my sewing scissors. This will not be good for them, but at least I understand how to make them work.

  Then, clicking my pinking shears, I kneel on the grass and survey the bed of flowers. I begin trimming back the grass that is sprouting into the petunias, last year’s petunias that have wintered over. More hair in my eyes, more sweat runs down my sides. More hair, more hair in my eyes, in my face … my damned hair … I pull out the barrettes, grab a handful of my hair, I scissor it off. I grab more hair, gather it off my neck, draw it forwards, I cut it with my pinking shears. I cut it, whack at it. So intoxicating, irresistible, the best thing I’ve ever done. Whack, whack, right there in the yard, I give myself a haircut, a wonderful, liberating haircut. Hair filters down in a fine rain onto the petunias, and I’m glad to be rid of it. I am sorry when there’s no more hair to get hold of. I long for more hair to cut, more hair to cut away from my face, my neck, to cut away from my eyes. I shake my head, my light head, my cool unburdened head. Much better, so very much better.

  At that precise moment, I see through the opened door into the garage that Harold’s pickup has backed into my drive, Harold from the plant. YOU SHOULD SEE WHAT I SAW reads his bumper sticker. Oh, shit, I think, oh, holy smoking shit. What timing.

  “Mrs. Malone,” he calls, “I tried phoning, but first the line was busy and then no one answered. They cleaned out Emmett’s stuff, getting ready for the new guy. Just thought I’d take a chance and come on out with these boxes. You want I should leave ’em in the garage? Or bring ’em in?”

  “Well, I guess the garage would be fine. What is it?”

  He puffs a bit, unloading cardboard boxes, stacking them in the hot garage. “I’ll let you look through ’em, uh, Liz. Say, it’s none of my business, but what’re ya up to?” He steps into the yard, looks at the hairy petunias.

  “Peg, I’m Peg, remember?”

  “Oh, excuse me, Peg.”

  “What I’m up to is, well, I’m trimming grass. Couldn’t get the clippers to work, so, uh, I’m using my sewing scissors. Never mind. I’m quitting anyway. Too hot.”

  “Yeah, it’s a warm one today, heading into a hot summer. You got a weed eater … you want I should look at? The company, they don’t expect me back right away.”

  I feel a thrill of alarm, throw him a look. But he seems innocent. And old, in the full merciless light beating down in the yard. He has that hollow-chested, potbellied build of an old guy, the kind who’d wear Sansabelt polyester pants, and wash-‘n-wear rayon shirts. His face is jowls and bags, his high balding forehead sprinkled with freckles, the kind that look pre-cancerous. “No, that’s all right,” I say, and am ashamed of how rude I sound.

  “Least lemme check the clippers. Where they at?”

  As I’ve seen Amy do, I ruffle at my hair, trying to fluff it up, then brush grass and hair from the front my jeans. He’s a nice person. Besides, why would anyone make a pass at me, for God’s sake! “Yeah, okay. See? I can’t get the blades to unlock.”

  He twists a gadget shaped like a figure 8, and the blades spring apart, ready to work. “It’s a safety precaution, so you don’t stab yourself unexpected. Nuthin’ to it. You didn’t do the lawn work, didja? I tell ya, it’s tough takin’ over when the man’s gone. Otherwise, you look like you’re doin’ okay.” He appraises me. “The family resemblance, I can see it now, ’tween you and your girl.”

  I say quickly, “Amy takes after her father, he had the looks.”

  “I don’t know about that. Maybe it’s your hair. It’s different.”

  “Yes, I just cut it, right out there in the garden.” I laugh nervously, then add, “But you’ve got to get on your way.”

  “You want I should look at the weed eater?”

  All I want is for him to go. “No, that’s okay, Harold. I’ll take it in for a tune-up, or whatever. Do they give weed eaters a tune-up? Is that the right word?”

  He laughs as if I’ve said something funny. “You could run it on down to Bill’s Mowers on Main. Tell ’em you want it serviced. Honest, I don’t mind lookin’ at it.” He reaches for the weed eater.

  “Listen, I do need you to do something. Not with the weed eater. What I need is someone to take dishes back to the plant. To the people w
ho brought food to the funeral supper. I don’t know how to get these dishes back. Could you do that for me?”

  “Surely. Don’t mind a bit. Glad to help out.”

  He follows me into the house, and in the service porch he hefts the box I’ve packed with plates and bowls from the office crowd. One is a green pottery that nestles in a wrought iron framework. MAGGIE QUINN reads the tape on the bottom. “Getting these back, it was awkward for me. I couldn’t make myself do it,” I mumble.

  “Yes, I know. This is fine, you don’t have to face it.”

  Face what, I wonder. But I do not want to question him, I want him gone. I want to be alone with Emmett’s stuff, to see what’s left of him. There must be clues in his paperwork, or whatever he’s left behind. I am barely able to smile and give a goodbye salute as Harold drives off with his cargo of kitchenware.

  First, though, I have to see what I’ve done to my hair. I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror. I’ve cut what can pass as a fringe of bangs, and my face seems smaller, less horsy. Not bad, I don’t look bad. But not as good as Amy.

  No, Amy’s the pretty one, with her smooth hair and skin, her deep-set hooded eyes shaped like triangles, like canoe paddles; her pointed little chin with Emmett’s dimple. Such looks made her popular with boys. Since grade school, she’s had them hanging around.

  Then I remember who took that picture of the three of us in the park. Amy’s boyfriend, her callow pimpled swain, yeah, he’d come along with us to share the birthday cake. He’d been sixteen, two years older than Amy, and had his own car, which made him dangerous. Emmett had hated him on sight and never missed a chance to take pot-shots. His name was Matt Butterworth, which Emmett transposed into Butt Matterworth, sometimes Matterworthless. Emmett said the kid looked slick and greasy. Did he melt in the sun? Did he slide off the seat of his car? Did he rub off on Amy’s hands? That kind of sly sexual insinuation had incensed Amy.