hills, the sky, the river. And here they were, the three of them, as if in the bulkhead of an airplane remarking on mankind. On their collective good fortune.
“But you don’t seem like you’re dying,” Ralph said.
“In about six weeks, things will look different. Six weeks should give me time to finish my list.”
Ralph had to know. “Was it that obvious?”
“Your sorrow?”
Ralph nodded. “That, and my need for…” he couldn’t finish. A choking ball of snot and rage came careening up like volcanic activity. Candi helped it escape. She was gifted. Her hands, her soft skin, her muscular biceps.
Guy LeGrange, the wizened reaper, raised both arms as though on a pulpit. “We’re all moving toward death,” he said as he stepped into the open casket, “one day at a time. We can do it with grace, or we can do it with blasphemy.”
His girlfriend’s touch, her soft kiss on his earlobe, her gentle massage, Ralph couldn’t help it. He began to grow stiff. His actuarial mind started crunching numbers; calculating how long a person could survive in a closed casket. If life were this tenuous, then he knew how he wanted to spend his last little while. Ralph raised his leg, partly to conceal his growing tented trousers, but partly, too, in preparation for kicking closed the lid of the odd table. He was going to live as never before, one last time, on top of Candi’s coffin, with the death coach clawing beneath.
Putting Asunder
Every morning I go two miles out of my way to drive by my husband’s new house. I tell myself I do this because seeing his yellow Chevy truck calms me down—negates the morning’s tank of coffee. Truthfully, though, I drive by the house to check in with the meter that measures my degree of regret. To check the level of sap in my spine.
The safest days begin with a scan for the piles mounded in the driveway. I am at my most pragmatic when considering the physical evidence of our dissolution. There, next to the mouth of the carport, is the rotting worm bin. Next to that, four large hunks of basalt. Old-growth lumber, still studded with nails, stretches the length of the yard. My husband has an eye for the raw, worn, and semi-functional items of the previous century.
This reverence for treasure falls under the category, “things one appreciates about one’s spouse from a distance.”
But the days when my vision won’t take in the full picture out the broad curve of my minivan window, when I can’t get past that old Chevy—or the lack of the Chevy there in the drive—those are the days. The worrisome days. The days I’m likely to come home and notice the one copper salmon on the wall, instead of the two that were given us as a wedding present.
This is a long-time-in-the-making separation. A crock-pot split up. We tried, a few years back, to do this: live cleaved lives. It didn’t work. We weren’t ready. But every day since, we’ve forged incrementally into aloneness.
It is a dance we’re perfecting. We sidestep, dip, come apart, tango and bow to the partners that we’ve never been able to be for one another. And in this dance, we fever. We sweat. We lay limp, and contained. Last night, for instance. Last night I craved coffee ice cream. The Safeway just steps from my husband’s house. Call? Ring the doorbell? There was no bell, so I knocked. His roommate answered with the shock of seeing the person you were just talking about. Or maybe I’m paranoid.
Ordinary separated spouses would be annoyed by the intrusion. My husband smiled with genuine happy surprise. He opened his arms to me. He wanted, I think, for me to sit on his lap. The roommate scuttled upstairs to his section of the house.
My husband’s new bedroom is a replica of the one he had when we were dating: his Goodwill As Is lamp with the amethyst base teeters on his pile of Fine Homebuildings. The other lamp, the one with gilded cherry foliage snaking up to the light, that one sits on the desk
“But you don’t seem like you’re dying,” Ralph said.
“In about six weeks, things will look different. Six weeks should give me time to finish my list.”
Ralph had to know. “Was it that obvious?”
“Your sorrow?”
Ralph nodded. “That, and my need for…” he couldn’t finish. A choking ball of snot and rage came careening up like volcanic activity. Candi helped it escape. She was gifted. Her hands, her soft skin, her muscular biceps.
Guy LeGrange, the wizened reaper, raised both arms as though on a pulpit. “We’re all moving toward death,” he said as he stepped into the open casket, “one day at a time. We can do it with grace, or we can do it with blasphemy.”
His girlfriend’s touch, her soft kiss on his earlobe, her gentle massage, Ralph couldn’t help it. He began to grow stiff. His actuarial mind started crunching numbers; calculating how long a person could survive in a closed casket. If life were this tenuous, then he knew how he wanted to spend his last little while. Ralph raised his leg, partly to conceal his growing tented trousers, but partly, too, in preparation for kicking closed the lid of the odd table. He was going to live as never before, one last time, on top of Candi’s coffin, with the death coach clawing beneath.
Putting Asunder
Every morning I go two miles out of my way to drive by my husband’s new house. I tell myself I do this because seeing his yellow Chevy truck calms me down—negates the morning’s tank of coffee. Truthfully, though, I drive by the house to check in with the meter that measures my degree of regret. To check the level of sap in my spine.
The safest days begin with a scan for the piles mounded in the driveway. I am at my most pragmatic when considering the physical evidence of our dissolution. There, next to the mouth of the carport, is the rotting worm bin. Next to that, four large hunks of basalt. Old-growth lumber, still studded with nails, stretches the length of the yard. My husband has an eye for the raw, worn, and semi-functional items of the previous century.
This reverence for treasure falls under the category, “things one appreciates about one’s spouse from a distance.”
But the days when my vision won’t take in the full picture out the broad curve of my minivan window, when I can’t get past that old Chevy—or the lack of the Chevy there in the drive—those are the days. The worrisome days. The days I’m likely to come home and notice the one copper salmon on the wall, instead of the two that were given us as a wedding present.
This is a long-time-in-the-making separation. A crock-pot split up. We tried, a few years back, to do this: live cleaved lives. It didn’t work. We weren’t ready. But every day since, we’ve forged incrementally into aloneness.
It is a dance we’re perfecting. We sidestep, dip, come apart, tango and bow to the partners that we’ve never been able to be for one another. And in this dance, we fever. We sweat. We lay limp, and contained. Last night, for instance. Last night I craved coffee ice cream. The Safeway just steps from my husband’s house. Call? Ring the doorbell? There was no bell, so I knocked. His roommate answered with the shock of seeing the person you were just talking about. Or maybe I’m paranoid.
Ordinary separated spouses would be annoyed by the intrusion. My husband smiled with genuine happy surprise. He opened his arms to me. He wanted, I think, for me to sit on his lap. The roommate scuttled upstairs to his section of the house.
My husband’s new bedroom is a replica of the one he had when we were dating: his Goodwill As Is lamp with the amethyst base teeters on his pile of Fine Homebuildings. The other lamp, the one with gilded cherry foliage snaking up to the light, that one sits on the desk
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