When Things Get Back to Normal (7 page)

And I was furious with your teammates who had encouraged you to keep playing. I hated them for saying I was henpecking you when I tried to talk you into quitting. I wanted to go to their homes and haul them out of their secure beds and shout at them, “Look at what you've done to me! Look at what you've done to him!”

And, my God! How I envied their wives. They were home curled up safely beside their husbands. They weren't wandering through an empty house clinging to sanity.

I hosted a small luncheon today. The weekend was so terrible – so filled with despair and hate – that I knew I had to take drastic action to try and turn my life around.

On Tuesday I called a few friends for a patio luncheon. Once I made that first call I couldn't back out, even though I wanted to do just that. It was a lovely afternoon. I only had four guests – all women whose marriages are broken.

Maybe next time I'll stretch my guest list to include women whose lives are intact. Presently, it hurts too much to be around them.

After I cleaned up the luncheon dishes, and while I was on an energy roll, I telephoned a diet centre and signed up for a program of sensible eating. I'm practically living on dairy products. My non-dairy meals usually consist of something from the fast food section of the grocery store: boil a bag, remove and heat, whip and chill or thaw and serve. Perhaps my irritability and my tiredness will go away if I can get back to sensible eating.

A very sad day. It is six months to the day since your death. I couldn't walk in the academic procession, but I did torture myself by getting out our doctoral hoods and pressing them. For what reason, pray tell? Am I into self-flagellation or what?

I was asked by a group of married friends to go with them to the alumni dance. I refused. It would be layering pain upon pain. Besides, I didn't want to go to a dance and
wait upon the generosity of other wives and upon the accommodation of other husbands. I'd get more pleasure out of going to aerobics classes, and you know how I hate structured exercise classes.

My extreme sadness has put me in a mellow mood. I want to thank you for who I am. Without you, I never would have gone to university, written a novel or learned to play cribbage. I also want to thank you for fostering my self-confidence. And I forgive you for dying – at least I do at this moment. Tomorrow I may be back to, How could you do such a dastardly deed to me?

Before the night is over I might even drum up enough magnanimity to thank God for loaning you to me. It was such a quality loan. But I know my mellow mood won't extend to forgiving myself for not insisting that we take time to sit on the porch on lazy weekends instead of repairing or renovating the house. And for not using the percale sheets instead of keeping them for company. And for not telling you more often and more fervently how much I loved you. Like Richard II, I want to call back yesterday and bid time return.

I leave for the Learned Societies Conference in Winnipeg tomorrow. My trembling self is pretending to be one real cool lady.

The trip to the Learneds was an even worse mistake than the trip to Barbados or to Arizona. I came down with strep throat and then had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics I was given to clear it up. I ended up in the emergency room of the hospital – via ambulance. Earlier I wrote that I forgave you for dying. In the ambulance I forgave you for dying so suddenly. I was so ill. I could not wish even five minutes of that agony on you – even to permit me a final farewell. At the emergency centre, I was asked for my next of kin. What a jolt that was! “Your next of kin,” they kept insisting while I just stared at them mutely. “We must have your next of kin.” How could I tell them my next of kin is dead?

How do you tell a group of white-coated humans who are assaulting your body with needles and tubes that your next of kin is dead?

Still, sick or not, I did make it to Winnipeg alone.

To all intents and purposes, I'm getting on with my life. I have settled your estate, learned to drive, conditioned myself to staying alone in the house – at least for the time being. I have even highlighted my hair. All outward signs point to my being back to normal – whatever that might
mean. The truth is though – the frightening truth is – I think I'm coming unravelled. The struggle to give my life the appearance of normalcy has taken its toll. I'm beginning to hate to go to sleep because I dream about you.

But perhaps it isn't the dreaming I hate; it's the waking.
I slept and dreamt that life was beauty. I woke and found that life was duty
. I'm not certain, but I think Emily Dickinson wrote those words. They've been circling my brain all evening.

I'm starting to have anxiety attacks. And I can't sit still. I'm filled with nervous tension. I can't content myself at the office. I can't content myself at home. Sometimes the restlessness inside me is overwhelming. On Sundays I have to sit in the back of the church so that if need be I can make a quick getaway. If this continues, I don't know how I'm going to cope with my classes in the fall. It's been almost seven months! Why can't I grab hold? Perhaps the house question being unsettled is driving me to this distraction.

I wish I could get interested in my writing – or something. I ask myself over and over, What do I do with the rest of my life? I know with certainty that teaching isn't enough. I dread the thought of an empty life. I can spot a bleak life a block away. One woman confessed she goes to three different church services just to get her through Sunday. From goblins and ghosties and three legged beasties and from church hopping on Sundays, dear God protect me. Apologies, Robbie Burns.

I visited your grave today and brought you a rose. From time to time I drop by to see you just so you won't have to make excuses to your neighbours about lack of visits from your family. In my black moments, I'm certain that's how I'll end up: in a nursing home, making excuses for the relatives who never come to see me.

JUNE 22 – Sunday

Seven months today since you died. Remember the colleague I told you about who began dating three weeks after his wife's death? I was talking to him today, and he was telling me that a few weeks after his wife died he asked a friend – a widower of six months – how long it took to get over the pain. The friend had no answer, just walked away. Months later my colleague asked him why he had acted so. Replied the friend, “How could I tell you I didn't know? At that time all I knew was it took longer than six months, and you didn't want to hear that.”

I really think I'm coming unglued, and the frightening thing is that on the outside I still look as if I'm “taking it well.” I was asked to a cottage for the weekend, but my nerves are so red raw I can't commit myself to being a house guest. I need the privacy to pace. Perhaps I should go to a doctor for a pill of some sort, but I believe I have to help
myself out of this black pit. The weather the last few days has been fine, and last evening I went out to police the lawns and fix up the ravages of winter. I listlessly picked up a fallen branch here and there. After a few minutes I gave up all pretence of caring whether the lawn looked unkempt or not. I came in the house and drew a bath, hoping that the warm water would help keep the parts of me together.

More vultures circling.

I had a call from a person who had heard I was going to sell the house and move into an apartment. He wanted to have first crack at buying my excess furniture. I told him it was a vicious rumour that I was selling any of my belongings – house or furniture. In truth, I would make a bonfire of the furniture before I would sell it garage-sale style. I couldn't bear to have strangers haggle over our precious memories. If push comes to shove, I'll give the stuff up for adoption to family and friends.

After that phone call, I went to the store and bought a double-decker box of Laura Secord French Mints and ate the whole thing. If I don't get such unbridled decadence under control, I'll need a new wardrobe, and I don't have any spare energy to devote to shopping.

My father's birthday. He was fifty-two when he died. I wish I had understood my mother's pain then. Tennyson said,
'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise
. The only trouble is that wisdom comes too late and at too great a price.

I've decided that what I need is a full day of crying. It will relieve me of the jitters. I'm setting aside tomorrow. I'm going to lock the doors, turn off the phone, close the drapes and let the tears flow. I'll weep myself dry. Maybe then my eyes won't fill up and my voice crack when someone asks how I'm doing without you.

Just had a call from Roge and family. They are arriving from Montreal tomorrow to spend Canada Day weekend with me. I guess that scuttles my plans for the crying binge.

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was, Roge and family are coming this afternoon. My second thought was that you had died, and the third was wondering how I would get through their visit without your presence. Who, for instance, would do the barbecuing? Still, you
were
my second thought. In January I said that before spring arrived I'd wake up to a thought other than your death. So I missed my deadline by a season, but who's counting?

Steve saved the day yesterday by coming home unexpectedly. He did the barbecuing. When we sat down to eat, everyone talked louder and faster than usual. We rapidly filled in all the silent spaces, fiercely pretending we didn't notice the empty saddle.

It is thundering and lightning and there's a savage wind. And the house is so silent. So empty. The branches from the lilac tree are scraping against the window panes and making intruder noises. What if the lights go out?

I think the candle stubs went out in the cleaning purge. I need you tonight. I really need you. I need to be hugged. I need to be loved. I need to feel safe.

I'm so terribly afraid of the night, especially of the night in this house. The boogeyman skulks in the basement waiting for the lights to go out. But I fool him. I keep all lights burning. The place looks like the
Titanic
just before it hit the iceberg. Yesterday I stocked up on fuses, and as soon as I returned from the store, I decided to try my hand at fuse replacement before the need actually arose. But I couldn't find the fuse box. I called our neighbour and asked him if he knew where it was.

He was silent for several seconds, and when he finally spoke, he sounded as though he were talking to a small child who had lost her way. “Jean, my dear,” he said, “when you had the new furnace put in last year, you also replaced the fuse box with a circuit breaker. You no longer need fuses. You just flick a switch.”

Slightly nonplussed, I replied, “In that case, do you know of anyone who can use two dozen fuses of varying amps?”

Went to the bank today and had my credit cards reinstated. When you died I had an overpowering urge to simplify my life. When I cancelled your credit cards, I cancelled my
own as well. I even cancelled the newspaper because I couldn't cope with the burden of having to remember to pay the carrier.

But my penchant for simplicity still hasn't totally deserted me. Today I made one final culling of drawers and closets. With the zeal of an evangelist ridding a village of devils, I cast out threadbare towels, mismatched dishes, leaky vases and pots with burnt bottoms. Without a backward glance I threw out lamps without sockets, empty jam jars, dozens of plastic ice cream containers.

I didn't even have a tear in my eye when I dumped the placemats with the wobbly-stitched hems Susan had given me for Christmas – a grade one project. With equal callousness I dumped the plaster cast of Steven's hand, his kindergarten birthday present for me.

Earlier tonight an acquaintance dropped in because she happened to be in the neighbourhood. I think she dropped in because she wanted to inquire about the house. In the course of conversation, she said I should really try to get on with my life because “sooner or later it happens to all of us.” It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “I would have preferred if it had happened to you sooner and me later,” but my tongue isn't that sharp yet. In the next breath, she said she had to go home because her husband
was there alone watching television. What were you doing about that time?

Your brother and family visited today. Frank did the barbecuing, and when I saw him doing what you should be doing, I got a pain in my heart so piercing I could barely breathe. He looks so much like you, but he isn't you.

A black letter day! I put the house on the market this afternoon. When I woke up this morning I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had to sell. My friend A. said the day would come when I would have an answer to the house question. She also added there would be no joy in the answer. How prophetic she was.

Yesterday should have been a very happy day. Relatives were here. Steve dropped in unexpectedly. A group of Steven's friends came by. But all the company did for me was to make me aware that this house will never be my house. It was our house, and the joy it gave us will never be transferred to me alone.

Your funeral has been on my mind all evening. I recall how I was convinced you were just visiting the funeral parlour, and at any minute you would return to the house and join the party at our place. I think the Valium I had been encouraged to swallow helped detach me from reality, or maybe it was my unwillingness to face reality that made me resort to the Valium. Will I be able to cope with the actuality of losing this house? Will I have to resort to Valium? Alcohol? All of the above?