Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(23)

The beginning. Just the beginning. Out of my control.

She will make sure that the door is closed securely behind the brother-in-law. She will lock it.

In a jovial voice the brother-in-law says: “Well, Claudia! I’ll call you later tonight. Maybe drop by tomorrow. Will you be home around four P.M.?”

Quickly she tells him no. She will not be home.

“What about later? Early evening?”

How aggressive the brother-in-law is! How uncomfortably close to her he is standing, breathing his warm whiskey-breath into her face as if daring her to push him away.

“Goodbye! I’m sorry, I can’t talk any longer right now . . .”

The widow would close the door after her unwanted visitor but with a malicious little grin the brother-in-law turns to grip her shoulders and pull her to him and press his fleshy lips against her tight-pursed lips—so quickly she can’t push him away.

“No! Stop.”

“For Christ’s sake, Claudia! Get hold of yourself. You aren’t the first person ever to have lost a ‘loved one.’”

The brother-in-law speaks sneeringly. The damp close-set eyes flash with rage.

The brother-in-law shuts the front door behind him, hard. He is very angry, the widow knows. She can’t resist the impulse to wipe at her mouth with the edge of her hand, in loathing.

From a window the widow watches the brother-in-law drive away from the house, erratically it seems. As if he would like to press his foot down hard on the gas pedal of his vehicle but is retraining himself. She thinks—But he will return. How can I keep him away!

She is feeling shaky, nauseated. She has neglected to eat since early morning. The remainder of the day—late afternoon, early evening, night—stretches before her like a devastated landscape.

When she returns to the living room she discovers the empty whiskey glass set carelessly on a mahogany coffee table. The rim is smudged from the brother-in-law’s mouth. Somehow, the amber liquid must have splashed over the side of the glass for there is a faint ring on the beautiful wood table-top, an irremediable stain.


She is living alone since James’s death.

It is maddening to be asked, as the brother-in-law has asked, Will you sell the house?

With subtle insinuation, Will you sell this large house?

Yet worse, have you considered getting a dog?

Well-intentioned friends, relatives, neighbors. Colleagues from the private school in which she teaches. Often she is unable to answer. Her throat closes up, her face flushes with pinpoints of heat. She sees these good people glancing at one another, concerned for her. A little frisson passes among them like a darting flame, their concern for the widow that links them as in an exciting conspiracy.

She has a fit of coughing. A thorn in her throat, she’s unable to swallow. A thorn in a cookie brought to her by one of the well-intentioned, she had not wanted to bite into, but had bitten into that she might prove how recovered from shock she is, how normal she is, how normally she is eating, unwisely she’d bitten into the cookie accursed as a fairy tale cookie for she has no choice, such cookies must be bitten into. And she begins to choke for she can neither swallow the thorn nor cough it up.

“Claudia? Are you all right? Would you like a glass of water?”—the cries come fast and furious like bees.

Quickly she shakes her head No no—no thank you. Of course she is all right.

It is the widow’s task to assure others, these many others, eager-eyed, greedy to be good at her expense, of course she is all right.

Her husband was a well-liked person, indeed well-loved. There is an unexpected burden in being the widow of a well-loved man. Your obligation is to assuage the grief of others. Your obligation is to be kind, thoughtful, generous, sympathetic at all times when all you want is to run away from the kindly prying eyes and find a darkened place in which to sleep, sleep, sleep and never again wake.

Children are brought to the widow’s somber house. Staring-eyed children for whom death is a novelty that threatens to turn boring after just a few minutes.

Adults for whom the death of their dear friend James will provide some sort of instruction or educational interlude for their children.

A brash child who says My mommy says your husband die-ed.

The widow sees looks of shock, disapproval in the adult faces. Embarrassment in Mommy’s face. The widow wants to hide her own face, that the brash child will not see how his crude words have made her cry.

The widow stammers an excuse. Retreats to the kitchen.

The widow will not hear her visitors murmuring in the other room for they have pitched their voices low, and she would rather draw a sharp-edged butcher knife across her forearm than overhear what they are saying.

Has the widow become an object of fear? An object of terror?

Has she become ugly?

Has she become old?

She thinks of witches. Women without men to protect them. Women whose husbands have died. Women whose property might be annexed by rapacious neighbors. Fortunately, the widow does not live in barbarous times.

This widow is protected by the law. The husband left a detailed and fully executed will leaving her his entire property, his estate.

When the widow returns to the other room her guests smile at her nervously, worriedly. They have prepared something to tell her and it is the widow’s oldest friend who rises to embrace her speaking of how James had “seen the best in everyone”—“brought out the best selves of everyone”—and the widow stands very still in the embrace, her arms limp at her sides, arms that are not wings, arms that lack the muscular power of wings to unfold, to lift the widow out of this embrace and to fly, fly away for her obligation is to submit to the commiseration of others and not scream at them Go away all of you! For God’s sake go away and leave me alone.