Forever, Interrupted(70)

She smiles at me but I can tell her smile can become a frown at any minute. Somehow, it doesn’t. She U-turns back to happier thoughts. “Let me show you the guest room!”

“The guest room?” I ask.

She turns to me. “You didn’t think I was going to let you sleep in Ben’s room, did you?”

“Kind of, I did.”

“I’ve spent far too much time in there, these past couple of weeks, and let me tell you: It only makes it sadder.” She doesn’t let the emotion deter the moment again. She’s dead set on moving through this. She leads me to a gorgeous white room with a white bedspread and white pillows. There are white calla lilies on the desk and Godiva chocolates on the nightstand. I’m not sure if the candles are new, but they haven’t been used before. It smells like cotton and soap in here. It smells so good. The whole thing is stunning, really.

“Too much white? I’m sorry. I might be overeager to use the guest room finally.”

I laugh. “This is gorgeous, thank you.” There is a robe on the bed. She sees me notice it.

“For you, if you want it. I want you to feel pampered here. Comfortable.”

“It’s great,” I say. She’s thought of everything. I look behind her to the bathroom and can see Ben’s soap message to her.

She sees me looking at that as well. “I couldn’t bring myself to wash it away when he was here, I know I won’t ever wash it away now.”

There it is, finally. I remember trying to find it the last time I was here. I remember why I gave up. And yet, it’s right in front of me now. It’s like it finally found a way to get me here. His handwriting is so imperfect. He had no idea what he was doing when he did that. He had no idea what it would mean to us.

Susan breaks the silence. “Okay, get settled in, do whatever you wanna do. Masseuse comes in about two hours. I figure we can order Chinese food shortly after that. I’m going to go watch trashy crap television,” she says. “And my only rule is that you forget about the real world while you are here and just cry anytime you want to. Get it out, you know? That’s my only rule.”

“Sounds good,” I say, and she takes off. I find myself slightly uncomfortable here, which takes me by surprise because I have been so comfortable around her recently. She has brought me such comfort. But I am now in her house, in her world. I am also in the house that Ben grew up in, and it feels fitting to cry. Yet, I’m not on the verge of tears. In fact, I feel okay. I can’t help but think that maybe because it’s okay to cry, I can’t.





MAY


Marry me,” he said.

“Marry you?” I was in the driver’s seat of his car. I had just picked him up from the doctor’s office again. He had bent down to pet a dog that morning and his back had respasmed. Apparently, this can happen when you don’t take the pain medication the doctor prescribes. Ben got a lecture on how he needed to take the pain medication so he would move normally again and work out the muscles. I had told him that earlier in the week, but he didn’t listen to me. So there I was, driving him home from the doctor once again. Only this time, I was being proposed to while he was drugged out on painkillers in the passenger seat.

“Yes! Just marry me. You are perfect,” he said. “It’s hot in here.”

“Okay, okay. I’m taking you home.”

“But you will marry me?” he asked, smiling over at me, watching me drive.

“I think that’s the painkillers talking,” I said.

“Drunk words are sober thoughts,” he said, and then he fell asleep.





OCTOBER


I sit out by Susan’s pool, reading magazines and getting a tan. Susan and I play gin rummy and drink a lot of iced tea. The days come and go, and I have nothing to show for them. I walk through her herb garden, and sometimes I pick lemons from her fruit trees and then put them in my drinks. I’m finally gaining weight. I haven’t stepped on a scale, but I can see the roundness back in my cheeks.

When the days start to cool down and the Santa Ana winds take over the nights, I sometimes sit by the outdoor chimney. I think I’m the first one to light it. But after the first couple of times, it starts to smell like a warm, toasty campfire, and if I close my eyes long enough, I can convince myself I’m on a traditional vacation.

Otherwise, Susan is usually with me, guiding me through her own little version of Widow Rehab. She starts to cry sometimes but always seems to stop herself. I’m pretty sure at night in bed alone is the only time she can really let herself go. Every once in a while when I am trying to fall asleep myself, I can hear her sob from the other side of the house. I never go to her room. I never mention it the next day. She likes to be alone with her pain. She doesn’t like to share it. During the day, she wants to be there for me, show me how this is done, and I’m happy to oblige. However imperfect, her system is working for her. She’s functional and composed when she needs to be, and she is in tune with her feelings in her own way. I guess I am learning from the best because I do feel a little bit better.

When Susan isn’t around, sometimes I sneak into Ben’s old bedroom. I imagined it would be here waiting for him, frozen in time from when he left it. I thought maybe I’d find old high school trophies and pictures of prom, maybe one of those felt flags I’ve seen people pin on their walls. I want to learn more about my husband. I want to consume more information about him. Spend more time with him. But instead, I find a small room that had been cleared out long before Ben died. There’s a bed with a blue striped comforter, and in one corner, a half-torn sticker from some skateboard company. Sometimes, I sit on the bed and hear how quiet this house is with just one person in it. It must be so quiet for Susan when I am not here.