That night Waiters on Wheels shows up with my first free dinner. The waiter is dressed in black pants, a stiff white dress shirt with too-long sleeves, and a slick black vest. A red bow tie hangs askew at his neck.
“Evening,” he says, bumping past me into the hall, a red insulated bag tipping him to one side. “Living room, dining room, or kitchen?” he asks, mopping his brow with his free hand.
“Kitchen, I guess.” I stand in front of the living room door, hoping he won’t notice the lack of furniture.
He quickly unpacks the dinner and sets two places at the kitchen table, the oily-looking vest making swishing noises as he works. There’s even a little vase with a red carnation and candles in plastic holders.
“It’s just me,” I tell him.
He looks around the room helplessly. “Should I put the other dinner in the fridge?”
“No, leave it,” I tell him. “But I don’t need the extra setting.” I wonder what it’s like to have a job delivering fancy restaurant dinners to the Valley’s high-tech workers, many of whom have gourmet kitchens—six-burner Vulcans, Corian counters, and gleaming stainless appliances—but rarely cook.
The waiter’s neck is red and bumpy along the collar of his shirt. I consider asking him to sit down and eat the other dinner with me, take a break, but I worry this will come off as a romantic advance. Besides, I’m sure he’s got more food to deliver.
“I won the dinners,” I try to explain in case he thinks I’m crazy for ordering two meals when I’m only one person. “At a party.”
He smiles weakly and I tip him. Then he’s gone.
Instead of sitting, I stand at the table and eat, the earnestness of the red carnation breaking my heart. It’s trying too hard. The foil-wrapped butter patties glitter like gold coins. I unwrap one and place it on my tongue. Eating plain butter! But a “Why bother” mantra prevents me even from buttering a roll. Besides, the yellow tabs are soothingly smooth and sweet and salty. I eat another, then another, and then the rolls, followed by the risotto, then the second serving of risotto—Ethan’s risotto—finally sitting down.
The truth is, I often ate alone when I was married, when Ethan worked late. Sometimes he’d get so sucked into writing software code that he’d forget to call or show up in time for dinner. I bought him a watch that was water-resistant up to 330 feet and told time in five different time zones. I set the alarm for six-thirty
P.M.
and insisted he call home even if he was at the bottom of the ocean or in Paris.
The first night after I gave him the watch he called at six-thirty sharp, then at seven, eight, and again at nine. At ten he strolled through the door, laptop tucked under one arm. As I jammed wilted asparagus down the disposal, he tried to hug and kiss me, but I was not talking to him. I slammed pots and pans into the dishwasher and lusted after my next husband, an attentive podiatrist who’d always arrive in time for dinner, because no one really needs their feet tended to after five.
Ethan hovered behind me, his belly warm against the small of my back. Lifting my hair, he kissed the nape of my neck and cheeks, nibbled at my ears.
“Quit it,” I grumbled, swatting him away. But he moved in closer. As I felt the thump of his pulse in his neck and breathed in the cottony smell of his shirt, I was soothed by his significant otherness.
He said he was sorry and suggested we both work from home the next day.
“Maybe,” I mumbled, still refusing to turn from the sink.
“I can’t guarantee you won’t get sexually harassed in the workplace,” he teased, pulling my arms against my sides so I couldn’t fuss with the dishes anymore.
I tried to suppress a giggle, forcing a cough instead. Ethan’s arms were strong and certain as he steered me down the hall to our room, his mouth warm, salty, and familiar.
Now, as I swallow more gummy risotto, I imagine that Ethan and I dined together every evening at a table like this. But a post- Thanksgiving dinner sort of cramp starts to rise up in my throat, and I have to push the food away.
The next time I see Dr. Rupert, I explain that I’m always tired yet never sleep well and that I can’t stop double-checking things. Before I can go to sleep at night, I have to circle through the house and check the locks on the doors two, three, four times. Whenever I leave a restaurant or coffee shop, I have to go back and touch the table and look under the chairs in case I’ve forgotten something. When I’m taking aspirin for a headache, I have to spit the pills back into my palm and double-check, making sure they’re not buttons or pebbles.
“Obsessive-compulsive behavior,” he explains calmly. “It’s part of working through the loss. It should subside.”
But I feel too exhausted to work through the loss. I’d rather
outsource
working through the loss. That’s what you do in Silicon Valley: hire help. A nanny to look after the kids, a nutritionist to plan the meals, a gardener to tend the wisteria, a trainer to monitor your workouts. I need a grief underling.
This is Helga, and she’ll be working through the loss for me. Helga, before you leave today, please touch all of the doorknobs and locks and eat all of the Oreos in the house. I’m going to sleep now.
Dr. Rupert laughs nervously when I share this idea, sliding a little pad from his desk drawer. “Grief-caused depression,” he explains, writing a prescription for an antidepressant. “These will help. But they may take up to six weeks to really kick in.”
On Halloween, angels and ghosts and pirates flock to my doorstep. A tiny pumpkin hoists her leg over the threshold and clings to my calf like a koala bear.
“No, Jenny,” the baby’s mom says, and laughs. “We don’t live here.”
This is a busy year for trick-or-treaters. It’s only seven and I’m already running low on candy, since I never made it back to Safeway to load up. Every time I passed the store my throat tightened, and I decided to make do with the limited selection at the drugstore by my house.
I wish Ethan were here now, because he always dressed up on Halloween and made the kids laugh. During a lull, a Butterfinger burst of energy inspires me to dig my witch costume out of the basement: pointy black hat, black cape, rubber nose, and green makeup. I add a little water to the makeup to get it working again and blacken one of my front teeth with an eyebrow pencil.
Next time the doorbell rings, I throw open the door and let out a cackling laugh. A tiny cat and ladybug shriek and hide behind their mothers’ legs. The ladybug sobs and tears off her antennae.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” I pass out handfuls of Baby Ruth bars to show I’m not one of those just-pick-one ladies. The mothers chuckle and say not to worry. But one of the mothers doesn’t want the Baby Ruth.
“Little ones can choke on nuts,” she says primly. She’s wearing khakis, white ankle socks, and loafers. I feel as if I offered the kids Drano.
After the group is gone, I crack open a beer and sit on the living room floor, leaning against the wall where the sofa used to be, unwrapping and eating Baby Ruth bars. My witch’s hat hangs over my eyes. I knew it had to be too good to be true: this fleeting feeling that the holidays could be fun.
As I’m working my way through a peanut-butter cup, the phone rings and I climb up to answer it.
“I’m a
ticky
tahk,” a small voice squeaks.
“Pardon?”
“I’m a
ticky
tahk!”
Then there’s a grown-up voice. “She’s a kitty cat,” says Ruth, my college friend. Ruth lives in Ashland, Oregon, now, and she’s called me at least once a week since Ethan died. “Sorry, she’s got candy in her mouth,” she adds, laughing. “We lost her tail.”
“I’m a
ticky
tahk!” Simone squeals in the background. Then she says, “Uncle?”
“No,
Auntie,
” Ruth says, and sighs. “How are you
doing
?”
“Fine. Good!” Then I confess that I’m flubbing up at work and driving over curbs and mailing letters without stamps and I’m afraid to go to the store.
“Get out of there, Soph. Come and stay with us.
Live
with us. Honestly, I could use the help.” Ruth’s ex-husband is a flake who rarely visits Simone.
“I’d have to sell the house.”
“So?”
So. I’m already one living room ensemble closer to leaving Silicon Valley. A step toward escaping my mortgage and that deadline at work. Part of me wants to say,
Screw this place.
Another part of me still wants to make it here for Ethan. Yet another part of me wants to get back to work on the Oreos.
While Ethan was sick, all I thought about was whether he was comfortable—whether he wanted a malted or a pain shot or a cool cloth for his forehead. As soon as the memorial service ended, though, it was time to think about the future. Suddenly what to do with the rest of my life and what shirt to wear became equally daunting decisions. Gradually I was able to think ahead a little bit: Maybe in a few minutes I’ll get dressed. Maybe in a few hours I’ll get dressed. Maybe
tomorrow
I’ll get dressed. But nothing like moving to a new state.
“I don’t know,” I tell Ruth.
“You’ll love it up here.”
“Thanks, it sounds great. I’ll think about it.”
After we hang up, I open the front door and peer out at the street, flashlights bobbing in the night. The air is cool and moist against my face, and overhead Venus glitters and blinks as though it’s breathing.
“You would not
believe
how the smells of cinnamon and vanilla draw in a buyer,” says Melanie the realtor, pivoting on one pump and surveying my living room. “Hmm, you don’t have any furniture in here, and
that’s
a problem.” I got her name from a
SALE PENDING
sign in a neighbor’s yard on a day when selling the house and moving into a condo with no memories and a smaller mortgage seemed the only logical thing to do. But now I’m not so sure. Melanie’s making me a long list of chores before the place can go on the market: replace drapes, buy houseplants and throw pillows, rent living room furniture. She’s already sold four houses on our block and she drives a champagne-colored Lexus, but she looks young, maybe only thirty.
“Buy scented candles or bake a pie or something,” she says, waving a hand in front of her face and wrinkling her nose. “This place smells . . .
musty.
” Cancer. Maybe three months later my house still smells like cancer.
Ethan and I never discussed selling the house. During his last visit to the hospital he rattled off reminders for taking care of it: repair the sagging fence, hire a chimney sweep before lighting a fire this winter, schedule the tree pruner. I sat on the edge of his bed, even though the nurse said not to, and listed the chores on a yellow pad, pretending to be concerned about them. We had worked hard to buy our house, so I didn’t want to tell him that after he was gone I didn’t care if I lived at the YWCA.
I had imagined there would be
Love Story
speeches by Ethan’s deathbed, like in the movies, but mostly we just held hands and talked about the house and whether he wanted Chap Stick or a sip of milk, and I realized that this is what happens when someone’s dying. It’s not like a soap opera, where the patient clutches your arm and rasps, “My whole life I have loved you the most,” or, “I have always wanted to tell you that you have a sister living in Albany.” Your loved one is more apt to remind you to feed the cat when you get home.
Melanie says we have to stage everything, whip the place into shape. Her diamond earrings shimmer against her downy pink earlobes. She frowns at my empty living room, indents in the carpet marking where the furniture once was.
“I’ll bake,” I promise.
The first week of November brings gusts of wind that send lawn chairs tumbling across the patio, dead leaves swirling, and garbage can lids clanging against the side of the house. The autumn sky is a bright gray that hurts to look at. I imagine the earth tilting on its axis away from the sun and feel dizzy and weak and wonder when the pills will start working. Of course, the fact that I sometimes forget to take them probably doesn’t help. Also, I’ve started playing grief group hooky, dreading the bitter coffee, bright lights, and public speaking at the meetings.
Medical bills and insurance statements continue to arrive in the mail, the “Explanation of Benefits” as nonsensical to me as Ethan’s death. I try to read the “Description” column, but everything’s abbreviated: “morphin inj 10 M, Elctrd EKG 3, Ans breath cir, SPNG 4x4 TRI10.” Finally I give up and just pay the patient responsibility portion, my checkbook balance waning, the vague medical terminology bringing back images of Ethan’s hospital days. The cool, damp sheets and ammonia smell of his bed. Dry, thin flamingo legs.
Melanie’s sign on the front lawn says
FOR SALE
.
The ad in the paper says
Perfect for a growing family!
It rains and rains, and the puddle under the floor in the coat closet creeps higher, a few skeletal leaves floating at the top.
I attend a day-long meeting with a committee writing the label for a new drug. The wording on the label is important, because that’s what you have to work with in the promotional materials that follow. The FDA is touchy, though, and won’t allow any promotional-sounding language. Each word has to be debated.
Reduces
versus
prevents. May cause
versus
has been known to cause.
As I’m trying to find my place on the handouts, the tag in my sweater jabs the back of my neck. I raise my hand to adjust it.
“Sophie. Question?” the vice president of marketing asks impatiently. His legs are crossed, and one slick loafer shines under the bright lights. Everyone in the group turns to look at me. Obviously I haven’t been paying attention. Worrying about the leak under my coat closet!
The VP drums his fingers on the table.
I want to explain that I wasn’t raising my hand, but suddenly I’m overcome with stage fright.
Meeting
fright. Trying to take a deep, cleansing breath, I discover that thin-air feeling again, my lungs shallow and woolen. Stars shimmer up the wall. My only thought is:
I need a sump pump.
Lara leans toward me, her eyebrows raised so high that they look as though they’re trying to crawl under her hair. Clearly they didn’t cover nut jobs like me in her MBA program.
One guy—a product manager who wears an earring in his tongue when he’s not at work—laughs, but everyone else is quiet. I excuse myself and then I’m out of there. Down the hall, down the stairs, papers flying behind me.
May cause? Has been known to cause?
As I run past the receptionist in the front atrium, forgetting my coat, I tell her I have a dentist’s appointment.
She points a red fingernail at the sheet on the counter and calls after me, “Sign out!”
The next day I set out to shop for the houseplants, pillows, and curtains Melanie wants for “staging” the house, even though the thought of going to the store fills me with what I know is an irrational sense of doom. I haven’t been to a
real
store since I fled Safeway before Halloween, limiting my shopping since then to the less overwhelming inventory at the 7-Eleven—squishy wheat bread and bologna and only one kind of eggs to choose from.
It’s not even Thanksgiving, but there are already poinsettias and Christmas decorations for sale at the nursery. A big spruce towers above me, choked with garland and winking white lights. I must write a memo to the Minister of Happier Days requesting that the holidays be canceled this year. As I browse for paper whites and amaryllis,
Nutcracker
Muzak rushes to a crescendo, all those violin strings screeching at me. I give up on the flowers and race to get out of the store, knocking over a display of potted African violets on my way. I stumble to my hands and knees, gathering up clumps of soil.
“I
told
Renaldo we shouldn’t put those there,” a voice behind me says. A slender man in a green apron stands with his hands on his hips. “Don’t worry,” he adds. “I’ve got it.” But it is better down here on the floor with the brown-speckled tiles and thin layer of dirt. Not overly festive like the rest of the store.
I can’t get up because the air’s too thin and my head’s too light. But I need to get out of the nursery
now.
The floor is cool and chalky against my palms as I crawl toward the exit.
“Ma’am?” the salesman calls out.
Surely this is worse than crying by the acorn squash at Safeway. If I hurry, I’ll be out of here in no time. I scuttle faster, passing a dirty noodle of a rubber band, my coat hiking up around my waist.
“Ma’am?” The salesman’s voice is farther away now. Grow lights buzz around me.
“Sophie? Dear?”
Marion! I crouch lower and peer up at her. Of course. She lives right near the nursery. She clutches a wicker reindeer lawn ornament by the neck. He has a big plastic cherry nose. It looks as though she’s choking him.
“Did you lose a contact lens?” she asks.
“Yes.” I begin to get up.
“But you’ve got your glasses on.”
“Right. Gosh.” I am on my knees, at eye level with the hem of Marion’s loden jacket. She reaches a small hand down for me. The fingers are pink and gnarled with arthritis, and there are no rings, just fingernails rounded into white crescent moons.
“What did you do with your wedding ring?” I ask her. “Where do you keep it?”