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16

Life returned to normal. Or at least, as normal as life can be after your wife throws herself from a rocky precipice.

Timothy returned to work after spending five days at home popping valiums and watching daytime TV. The Kid had done well, running the office, telling investors what had happened to Timothy, handholding them and answering their questions. Their condolences, no doubt sincere enough, were tinged with ice and steel: would this tragedy adversely affect Timothy Van Bender and Osiris LP? Would it change the strategy? Would it alter Osiris' returns? These people had not become rich by allowing themselves to brood. The Kid reassured them that Timothy's absence would be brief and that when he returned to the helm of Osiris, he would continue doing what he did best, making money on their behalf. That was all they wanted to hear.

What the Kid did not tell them was that, with or without Timothy Van Bender, Osiris was facing imminent ruin. The yen, which had so agreeably started moving down the moment that Osiris went short, had, almost on the day of Katherine's death, reversed and began moving upward with alarming speed.

The three-million-dollar paper profit that Timothy had already counted on to make back his first loss had slowly dwindled, first to two million, and then one. On the day of Timothy's return to the office, the huge yen trade was back in the red, and the twenty-four-million-dollar loss had, somehow, preposterously, grown to twenty-five million dollars.

This was what the Kid explained to Timothy as he greeted him at the elevator on Wednesday morning, his first day back to work. First, that the yen had risen past seventy-five; second, that all the other funds that had shorted the yen were now buying to cover
their positions, further increasing the speed of the yen's ascent; that Osiris' loss had grown to twenty-five million; and, finally, that Pinky Dewer had called several times, asking for his money. After all this, the Kid said: ‘Welcome back. You look good. How are you feeling?'

‘Like shit,' Timothy said. He pushed open the glass doors leading to the Osiris offices. Tricia was there, at the front desk. Timothy had not spoken to her since the night he fled her apartment – the night Katherine disappeared.

‘Hi, Timothy,' she said. ‘Welcome back.'

‘Thank you, Tricia.' He nodded. ‘I'm glad to see you.'

But the Kid was right behind him, staring at them, trying to figure out what it all meant. Timothy wasn't sure what he would say to Tricia, anyway, even if the Kid were not gawking. It seemed beside the point to tell her that their affair, however abortive, was over. Somehow, being a sudden widower made cheating less fun.

So he said, ‘Thanks for standing by me during this time.'

That seemed sufficiently vague, even conspiratorial – maybe just what she needed.

‘You know I'm here for you,' she said.

‘I'll be in my office,' Timothy said. ‘Kid, why don't you join me?'

It didn't take long – only an hour – for Pinky Dewer to call. Tricia announced him on the intercom, and Timothy decided to take the call, hopeful that the sudden death of his wife might make Pinky more empathetic. It did not.

‘Timothy, old boy,' Pinky said, ‘I know you've recently had a terrible tragedy. I'm sorry about Katherine. Did you get my flowers?'

‘Hmm,' Timothy said. ‘I'm not sure. What did they look like?' There had been a lot of flowers, and he couldn't remember who sent what, but he wouldn't put it past Pinky to expect as much and then send only an imaginary bouquet.

‘They were very floral,' Pinky said, his voice echoing on the speakerphone. ‘Very flowery.' He cleared his throat. ‘Timothy,
the reason I'm calling is that I still have not received any funds wired into my account, as I requested. This is now becoming a rather serious matter.'

Timothy winked at the Kid, who sat silently in the chair across the desk.

‘Jay,' Timothy said, ‘I thought I told you to take care of Mr. Dewer's request to redeem all but a hundred thousand dollars of his investment in Osiris.'

The Kid said theatrically: ‘I'm sorry, Mr. Van Bender. It's completely my fault. With all the events happening here – the tragedy – I just completely forgot. I'm so sorry.'

‘Jay,' Timothy continued, masturbating a giant imaginary penis in the air above his desk, ‘I'm very disappointed with you. My personal life should not affect your ability to do your job.'

‘Yes, Mr. Van Bender, I'm sorry.' The Kid joined in, masturbating his own giant imaginary penis.

‘All right,' Timothy said. He rose from his chair and walked to the door of his office. ‘Now get out of here.' He opened the door and slammed it shut. The Kid remained seated, silent. ‘Pinky?' Timothy called. ‘You there?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm sorry about that, Pinky. The Kid's an asshole. I will wire the money this morning. If I hurry, I can make the twelve noon cut-off.' But I won't hurry, Timothy thought.

‘I would appreciate that,' Pinky said.

‘Thanks for your patience, Pinky.'

‘I understand.'

Timothy returned to his desk, and his finger hovered over the End Call button, ready to hang up. Before he could, Pinky's voice called out. ‘Timothy?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm sorry about Katherine. She was a lovely woman. I can imagine how you must miss her. It's not easy, losing your other half, is it?'

Timothy felt ashamed. A moment ago he was pantomiming masturbation, and now Pinky was consoling him about losing his wife of twenty years.

‘It's not easy,' Timothy agreed, quietly.

‘It gets better,' Pinky said. ‘Not right away. It takes years. You were married for what, twenty years? Keep in mind: twenty years is longer than people used to live, not so long ago. So it may take time. But it will get better. And then one day you'll wake up, and it will seem like a lifetime ago. All the hurt, all the memories – they'll fade. She'll fade. You'll see.'

‘Thanks, Pinky,' Timothy said. And then he hung up.

17

The nights were the hardest.

During the day, at work, he could lose himself, staring at the green phosphorescent chart of the yen, or backslapping brokers at Il Fornaio over lunch, or taking an investor phone call, or shooting the breeze with the Kid – or even flirting harmlessly with Tricia. Even the failure of his yen bet was not unpleasant – the worry, the fear at least kept his nerves jangling, and kept him from thinking about Katherine.

But at night, alone in the big Tudor, he had nothing but the quiet. When the sun set, he made a point of walking through the house and turning on all the lights: every low-voltage point spot, every overhead chandelier, every floor torchiere, every under-cabinet fluorescent, every nightstand lamp. But even with the lights, it was futile; even with the white high-gloss paint and the gleaming ceramic tiles, the house seemed too dark, and it felt like the night was pressing in on him and his house, that he was being swallowed by it, a tiny pinpoint of light on a vast black ocean.

Drinking helped. Timothy had always had a drink at night, after work – a glass of wine with dinner, a Scotch while watching television with Katherine. But now, alone, without anything else to do or think about except his dead wife, he drank heavily, so much that he would finish an entire 1997 Flora Springs before bed, or polish off a quarter bottle of Dalmore while sitting at the kitchen table, eating spaghetti. The drinks dulled him so that the sharp, sickening feeling in his gut, that inexpressible sense of something lost – of anger and sadness – became nothing but a dull pain, a regular everyday feeling of warm melancholy.

For nine days after her death, Timothy was able to control
himself, but on the tenth, after drinking far too much – a bottle of cabernet from his wine cellar and three neat glasses of Scotch – he made a decision, as much as you can make a decision when you can barely walk, that he would read her diaries.

He stumbled up the stairs and into the bedroom. Her closet, a large walk-in, was separate from his, a small arm's-length box. He had not touched any of her belongings since her death. When he pulled open the doors he caught her smell, that sweet familiar odor of apples and honey, which clung to her clothes and, for a moment, made him think that she was still there, behind the blouses and dresses, ready to come forward and display a new outfit. He closed the door behind him to preserve the smell a few days longer, to prevent it from dissipating into the house, to keep from losing her completely into the air.

The diaries – that neat stack of identical leather-bound journals with gold leaf pages – remained meticulously stacked on the top shelf, among her sweaters and handbags, completely visible and in the open, protected by no more than the threat of her ire. He took the top-most volume and sat down with it on the carpeted floor. He landed on one of her shoe heels, which dug into his thigh. He pushed it aside, into another pile of her shoes, and all the heels clicked together softly, and now, down on the ground, he could smell the shoes too, the odor of leather and polish, the smell of undressing at night after an evening out, of unfastening a shoe strap before having sex, of kissing her ankle and calf and thigh.

What was he looking for in the diary? He did not know. The last time he had summoned the courage to read her journal, years ago, he was surprised and hurt by her words, by her withering criticism of him, by her icy secret hatred. Now, he didn't care what he found; he just wanted to have her back in some way, to stare at her tiny meticulous handwriting, to read her thoughts, to relive a day with her, even if through her eyes, and even if it meant seeing himself as a cad, a fool, a bastard.

He started from the back, flipping through empty pages – white space that represented days, and then months, of sadness; of his shuffling through the house, alone; of drinking himself into a
stupor at night; of sleeping beside an empty dark space in bed. Finally, midway through the book, he saw her writing, in that sky-blue ink she always used, the tight letters coiled on themselves, and he stopped flipping and licked his thumb, and began flipping forward instead of back, until he found one of the last entries in the book.

Thursday, August 12, 1999

Breakfast: wheat toast and jam, grapefruit. Timothy went to work, oblivious. Tomorrow, we drive to Big Sur. Twentieth A. at Ventana Inn! Twenty! Does he remember? I love him anyway. Sometimes he can be a dummy. Underneath, he is a kind man, and love means accepting. So I accept. Maybe we will find something white for front table in foyer. Marble? We'll see. Spoke to Mom. She went on and on and on about her tomatoes. She's like George Washington Carver with her tomatoes. I can't wait until winter comes to the Northeast and those plants wither so we'll have something else to talk about. Am I terrible? Yes.

Well here he comes. Home early. One day you look up and it's twenty years. Imagine that.

Timothy smiled. He could picture her writing those words, that last afternoon before their trip to Big Sur. It was only two weeks ago, but it seemed like forever, as if years had passed. What had Pinky told him? One day you'll wake up, and it will seem like a lifetime ago. Could it seem so long ago, already?

Timothy flipped backwards through the pages, through August and July, and then through June, and he imagined the Northern California seasons running in reverse, the dry heat and undulating hills of brown grass changing back to the bright wet green of spring – and then, in March and April, the rainy season coming, day after day of gray skies and drizzle and bone-chilling winds.

He skimmed her words as he turned. He flipped a few pages, and then slowed down, read an entry, and then continued flipping the pages. He was looking for some hint of sadness, some explanation about why she killed herself, but there was nothing.
Just wheat toast and jam, every day – so often that he wondered why she bothered recording it – and lunches with Ann Beatty, and tennis and riding at the Circus Club. Gifts purchased for friends; gifts returned. A shopping trip to the Stanford Mall. Dinner at Spago.

Every now and then, a jibe at Timothy – his callousness, his selfishness – always thinking about himself and not her. The way he flirted with the Asian hostess at Tamarine (how had she noticed that, Timothy wondered?) – and the suspicion, occasionally lurking under her words, that Timothy was not very smart, that he had managed to get where he was by sheer accident of birth (‘Thank you, Gabriel,' she wrote meanly one day, in an imaginary paean to Timothy's father, after Timothy bought her a new dining room set). But interspersed with those flashes of anger was the Katherine he remembered, the kind woman, the accepting wife, who was ready to forgive him for being who he was – who was more likely to see her husband as kind rather than slow (‘I think Timothy would have been a wonderful dad,' she wrote, after they spent an afternoon with the Weavers and their children), who was more likely to view his success as the result of a good heart and warm smile than genetic luck (‘he is full of grace, and the people around him respond to that,' she wrote about Timothy's toast to their guests at the Thanksgiving meal).

But what he did not find, as he pored over the pages, as he read entry after entry, was any mention of sadness, of suicidal despair. And there was no mention of illness. No mention of doctors or even a flu or a sore throat. This woman who was dying did not seem terribly concerned about that fact, which struck Timothy as odd, even though he was drunk on a whole bottle of cabernet and fifty dollars' worth of scotch.

He clapped the leather book shut with a thump and tried to stand. Off-balance, inebriated, he fell backwards into her shoe pile. He tried again. Now he felt very tired, but – strangely – giddy. Despite the oddness of some of her entries, he was pleased with what he had read. It wasn't as bad as he feared. She loved him. Reading her tiny handwriting was like a magical incantation, a spell that had momentarily brought her back to life. He felt close
to her now – closer even than on some days when she had been alive – and it was as if he had spent a few hours with her in the dark, lying next to her in bed, in a post-coital rambling stream-of-consciousness chat.