by
Julie Showalter
Louise is pouring her second cup of coffee when her neighbor, Mona Fletcher, appears on the back deck carrying a coffee cake and the morning paper, smiling brightly. Louise smiles back. One of the many ways her life has changed in the past year is that she's supposed to be grateful to people who interrupt her solitude. She slides the glass door open and resigns herself to losing part, if not all, of her planning hour.
"It's a wonderful day, just wonderful. A real nip in the air." Mona moves around the kitchen as if it were here own, getting a cup out of the cabinet, pouring the last of the coffee, making more, all the while chatting about her morning run. Her frosted blonde energy makes Louise feel like a frump.
When Andrew died, several of her friends descended, took over the kitchen, the phones, treated the house as their own to tidy up. They retreated after a few days -- all but Mona, who was never a close friend. Some barrier came down in that week and Louise can't figure out how to get it back in place. For the fact is, she likes Mona, has been surprised to discover that she enjoys her company.
Mona serves up the cake, leans forward and puts on her serious face. "So, how you doing." She reaches out and squeezes Louise's hand. "Really."
"I'm doing fine," Louise says, removing her hand and picking up her fork. "Really."
Mona chews and ruminates, then nods. "Well, they say it's easier after a year."
"Yes, they say that." The magical first year. Andrew has been dead one year one month and thirteen days. This is not her first November first without him. Last night was not her first Halloween. She got through this day before so she knows she can do it again. "Yes, I suppose it is easier."
"So, what's on your agenda today." Mona reaches for Louise's day planner open on the table, but Louise gets to it first, shocked that she would try to read something so private.
"It's a fairly easy day. No patients until 3:30, then straight through until 8:00." There's a tightness in her voice, almost anger.
Mona doesn't notice. "Great. Let's go shopping and have lunch."
A whole morning of Mona's chatter. Louise lies, "Well actually, I'm planning to spend the morning writing."
"Another book? What's this one about."
"Grief. Managing grief." She blurts this out as if it were a plan.
"Oh wow. Talk about being handed lemons and making lemonade! I told Ben, most women when they get breast cancer don't want to even think about it. But you -- you write a book and get famous."
"Well, semi-famous." Andrew's joke after she was on "The Today Show": "Will you still love me now that you're semi-famous?" With breast cancer she made personal trauma work for her, used it to help others. Could she do it again? She remembers Andrew's reaction to the book. "I love a woman who makes money off counter-phobic behavior. Profiting from your neuroses is so provocative."
Mona is now up washing dishes. With her back to Louise, she says, "St. Cecilia's resale shop is having a big push right now. I was wondering, you haven't done anything with Andrew's clothes yet, have you?"
Strangers pawing through Andrew's things. Louise is speechless.
Mona turns toward her. "Oh, I've upset you. I'm sorry. I just thought with it being a year, it was time. And it's a good cause, the school needs the money." She brightens. "I know. I could sort through everything for you. You wouldn't have to do a thing."
"No," It almost comes out as a shout. "I'll take care of it."
After Mona leaves, Louise wonders briefly if she's been bullied. A little bit, she decides. So she'll do a little bit. She'll find a few things it won't bother her to part with. She adds to her to-do list, Sort through Andrew's things.
Then she adds, Call Rachel. Call Jack. Talking to the kids will be her reward for a difficult task. At first she talked to them both every day, but the calls have dwindled gradually until they are back to the pre-catastrophe frequency of once a week. Jack still brings Andrew into every conversation, but Rachel didn't mention him the last two times they talked. Good, she thinks, good for Rachel. Sad for Andrew.
The children were very young when she got cancer, and she cried to Andrew, "What if they don't remember me, don't even remember that they had a mother?"
"Don't worry," he said, holding her tight, throwing his leg over her to hold all of her, "If you die, you will be immortalized in this household as Saint Mommy. You will get much better press than if you live."
Saint Dad. That really won't work. Jack was eighteen, Rachel twenty when she called one year one month and thirteen days ago to tell them about the accident. Andrew made his own press, for better or worse. It was too late for her to create a saint.
As happens so often when she thinks about Rachel, the phone rings and it's her. "Mom, I just wanted to get Thanksgiving plans finalized." Their daughter has Andrew's orderly streak. She'll be as good an attorney as he was. "I'm coming home, and I'm bringing a friend."
"Man friend or woman friend?"
"A man. He's second year. His name's Tom."
"A friend friend, or a something more friend?"
"You wish." Rachel's voice is sardonic. "I'm really not looking for an involvement right now, Mother."
"All right." She flips to November 23 and makes notes. "You and a friend. Jack's coming home too. It'll be nice to have the house full."
"That's what I thought, so I invited Tom's dad for Thanksgiving dinner."
She's adding clean guest room to her November 22 to-do list when this hits. "You what?"
"Well, he's divorced, and he doesn't live twenty miles from us. He's a dermatologist. You two will have a lot to talk about."
"I'm really not looking for an involvement right now, Daughter."
"Well maybe you should be." Rachel is using her exasperated voice now. "Are you planning to just seal yourself up? For god's sake, Mother, don't you want a man? Don't you miss sex?"
"Rachel, as much as you have always known what's best for me, I think you're pushing things a bit here." Does she miss sex? What a question to be asked by one's daughter. During the first few days after Andrew died, she was embarrassed at herself. Through the deepest sorrow, the worst moments, she craved sex. She and Andrew had always responded to pain by making love. When she was still in the hospital after the mastectomy, the night after they took all the tubes out of her, after she'd seen the wound for the first time, he climbed into her bed. They fumbled under the covers like teenagers, kissing, touching, stroking. They needed to be close, as close as they could get. At some point, she asked, "What if the nurse comes in?" and he answered, "She'll just have to wait her turn." And they made love slowly and gently.
And then he was gone, and she was alone with the worst pain she ever had. Sex was almost an obsession for her that week. She fell into bed exhausted and then masturbated trying to relieve the unpleasant urgency which felt more like a bladder infection than normal desire. For months after that, her desire vanished. She was glad it left and sorry when it came back. Even when her need to be loyal to Andrew diminishes, she will never be with another man. Fifty-two years old, going to flab, with one breast cut off. She'll never show her body to someone who can't remember when she was young and slim and wore a bikini.
"This is really none of your business, Rachel."
"The famous lady analyst knows what's best." Rachel now sounds about thirteen years old. She and Louise have always had a volatile relationship. Without Andrew as a buffer, it seems to have gotten worse. "Well, Mother, I think you should know that Jack and I worry about you. Rambling around in that house. It's really too big for you."
"I love this house. I'm not going to leave it just because your father died."
"OK, OK, but does it have to be such a fucking shrine to Dad?"
"As a matter of fact, I'm cleaning out your father's things today. It's written in my day planner, right here, sort through Andrew's things."
As she always does when she's lost a point, Rachel retreats. "Oh good. It's time." As if the fight never happened. "So, I guess you don't want Tom's dad. OK. Gotta run. Love you, Mom."
So she's committed. Anyway, they're right. Mona's right. Rachel's right. It's time. And once she's decided, she moves swiftly. She calls Mona. "Come over before my first patient, and I'll have some boxes for you." She has a task and she has a deadline. She'd better get busy.
After the accident, the cleaning lady did her normal straightening, and his dirty clothes were washed and put away, but otherwise Andrew's closet is the way he left it. If he walked in now, he'd say what he did every Monday evening after Miriam cleaned the house, "Where did she hide my red shirt? Can't you ask her to leave my things alone?"
For about three months Louise was able to sit in this closet and smell him, but now it smells like the rest of the house. The electronic air cleaner has filtered him away.
She walks to the hanging rods. Three suits -- two gray, one navy with pin stripes. The black one is gone, of course. Andrew was much better prepared for a funeral than she was. The day after the accident, she picked out his black suit then went to her own closet. She stood there blankly considering her choices: wear the brown print or buy something black she'd never wear again. Andrew would have suggested a third option -- the little black velvet off-the-shoulder thing she wore to his firm's Christmas party. "Shock 'em, Baby," he would have said. "Show a little thigh." She settled on the brown.
Twenty shirts, fifteen white, five blue, wing collar, light starch, on hangers. The dry cleaners miss him too. Three navy blazers, four pairs of gray slacks. Fifty ties -- did he ever throw one away? Three pairs of dress loafers, no tassels, perfectly shined, lined up with their shoe trees inside them. The professional Andrew. The tax attorney. The man who dressed to look successful and trustworthy. "To do important business you wear important clothes," he told her when she gasped at the price of his first Brooks Brothers suit. Pack up the professional Andrew. Send every bit of him to St. Cecilia's resale shop.
Behind the suits, his tuxedo, worn once a year to the Christmas party. Still in the dry cleaner's bag waiting for next Christmas, last Christmas now. The Christmas party, almost two years ago -- top of the Hancock, the lights of Chicago below them. She leaned her head against his shoulder as they danced to "Stardust," felt the scratchy wool of the tuxedo, the smooth satin of the lapel, breathed in the grassy, slightly vinegary smell that was Andrew. She closes her eyes and feels the pressure of his hand in the small of her back. She lifts the plastic bag, touches the jacket. The smell of benzene snaps her back. Today she will be decisive. She searches her mind for an alternative to St. Cecilia's. Winces at an image of herself dancing with a dummy wearing Andrew's tuxedo. Into the box. A shame, but what can she do with a custom-made $1200 tux?
His things are not as undisturbed as she thought at first. Most of his sweat shirts and sweaters have moved to her closet. A year ago, they felt like him, some even smelled like him. For a month or so, every evening, she would raid his closet, find something of his to wear. She's worn them enough they're just clothes now.
The casual Andrew had two modes -- spiffy and scruffy. Spiffy chinos, polo shirts, topsiders for barbecues, a movie, a Bulls game. Jack might like the polo shirts. No, that's ridiculous. He'd ask if they wanted them. The point is, you're getting rid of things, not holding on. She packs them in boxes with the suits and shirts.
Sweat suits, shorts, faded tee-shirts, tennis shoes for evenings at home. A half dozen surgical scrub tops stenciled "Cook County Hospital," won playing Horse with their neighbor the surgeon. In the summers he slept semi-nude, in those scrubs and nothing else. St. Cecilia's would turn their nose up at the scruffy Andrew. And Andrew the runner. He prided himself in the decrepit state of his running clothes. Only when a tee shirt was too worn for evenings was it suitable for running. His running shoes -- a joke, always falling apart, "Just broken in," he said. She picks up the running shoes. Not the smell she wants to remember. Throw it all out. Nothing else to do. She stuffs the clothes in black garbage bags, hesitates, pulls out the scrub tops. She can sleep in those.
She finishes by separating and packing underwear, decides everything that's been worn should be thrown away, puts unopened packages in the box. When she gets to his socks, her determination to be organized deserts her. He never threw away socks, just added new ones to the top of the drawer. She dumps them all in a box. Let someone else sort the worn from the new and nearly new.
She's gone through everything except his private drawer. When they were first together, sharing a studio apartment, he stopped her once, putting away laundry. "Don't bother that. It's my private drawer." She was hurt, curious, determined never to look until it was offered to her. And it never was. Sometimes during the early years, when he was working fourteen-hour days and she didn't know if they would make it, she would sit alone in the evening drinking wine, almost hearing the things in the drawer calling to her. But she never looked. As the years passed, and they shared so much, the drawer ceased to matter, or matter much. She saw it as one of his quirks. And to be honest, she knows the odds are at least fifty-fifty that he forgot about his admonition, would have been surprised to know she thought there was a drawer off limits to her.
In the drawer are three boxes. The first, a child's Vacation Bible School project, made of popsicle sticks, trimmed with yarn. It's old. Did one of the kids make it or did Andrew? She opens it and finds her husband's boyhood. Ten silver dollars, all dated 1942, the year he was born. A railroad pocket watch -- his grandfather worked for the railroad. Marbles. Tie tacks from the fifties. A silver horseshoe ring. A class ring -- Diamond High School, '61. A graduation announcement -- forty-nine seniors, Andrew Barker valedictorian. A picture of Andrew, aged six or seven, with his younger brother, dead long before she met Andrew.
The second box is metal, and it's locked. She goes to the laundry room where she keeps a jar with extra buttons, safety pins, and mystery keys. Finds the odd key that was among the things the police sent. It opens the box.
A handgun, bullets, and a gun-cleaning kit. It takes a moment for what she's seeing to register. Andrew had a gun. Did he get it the year the Gibson boy was kidnapped? There's a receipt dated June 1985. Rachel was eleven, Jack nine. What happened that summer to make him buy a gun? She can't remember anything.
She feels a prickling in her chest, almost anger. No, not almost. Anger. You know how I feel about guns. She can hear his reply, cold, attorney-like, absolutely rational. "Yes, and I respect your feelings. This gun has never caused you a moment's unrest." And herself, getting emotional, irrational, "But it hurts now." She analyzes the hurt. It's not just that he had a gun. He had a secret. There's something about him she didn't know, had no control over. Odd, to think of herself controlling anything about Andrew. She automatically rephrases -- he made a decision she had no impact on. She puts the gun back and locks the box. She doesn't think she'll be able to sleep knowing there's a gun in the house. She'll call the police later. They'll get rid of it for her.
The third box, a shoe box, makes her forget the gun. Letters from her, over a hundred, from the six months before she moved to Chicago to be with him. She opens one, reads, "Because of you I am re-experiencing adolescence, currently suffering from acne, infatuation, and a horniness that keeps me awake all night." She blushes, puts the letter away. Later, maybe in another year, she will read these letters. Much later perhaps, she will get out her letters from him and collate them -- his to her and hers back. She will have a picture of two very young people amazed at their luck in finding each other, giddy with all they had to say, knowing a lifetime together will not be enough.
It wasn't.
So those were his secrets, she thinks. Boyhood souvenirs, a gun I wouldn't want him to have, and letters from me. No secrets after all, no real secrets in the secret drawer. She puts the lid back on the letters and slides the box toward the back. Underneath is a cardboard picture frame. She opens it and sees a studio portrait from the early sixties. A pretty blonde girl, bouffant hairdo with flipped up ends, the photographer's drape creating the effect of the expensive off-the-shoulder Christmas party dress, pale lips, heavy eyeliner. It's signed, "To Andy, all my love forever, Candi."
Candi. She searches her memory for stories of girls before her, recalls no Candi. She'd remember a Candi. She's shocked as much by the "Andy" as by the picture.
The first time they went to bed together, afterwards, she said, "Now that I know you so well, Andrew seems a tad formal. How about I call you Andy." She kissed his chest and looked up. "Anyone ever call you Andy?" "Not more than once," he answered. So she spent their marriage unobtrusively correcting people, "It's not Andy, it's Andrew." Except for Candi who dotted the i with a little circle and promised all her love forever.
It's an old picture. It means nothing, she tells herself. Except that he kept it, except that no one else, herself included, was ever allowed to call him Andy.
As she looks at the picture, something clicks. After the funeral she went through Andrew's day planner, working with his secretary to make sure all his obligations were canceled, all the people in his life notified. They separated the address section into people who should be notified by the business and those who should be notified by the family. One of the half dozen people neither recognized, to whom they sent the business announcement, was a Candace Monroe.
The doorbell rings, bringing her back to the present.
She helps Mona carry the boxes to her Jeep. The day is crisp and sunny. She mentions that she has time for a short walk.
"Oh, that's great," Mona says. "I knew getting this old stuff out of the house would be good for you. Ben says I should leave you alone, that I push too much, but I say he just doesn't understand women." She checks her watch. "Tell you what. I don't have to be at the school for an hour. I'll walk with you."
Louise had hoped for time with her thoughts, but it doesn't matter. One thing about living alone -- there's always plenty of time to be alone with your thoughts.
Louise goes about her day. Eats lunch. Calls her son. Jack is her soft-hearted child. When she tells him she's cleaned out Andrew's closet, he says, "Was it hard for you?" He'd make a wonderful analyst, but she can't tell him that. Despite increasing evidence that his talent isn't big enough, he still has hopes of being an artist.
"Yeah, pretty hard. It's all still pretty hard."
"You know, Mom, Dad wasn't the easiest man to live with. I mean, we all loved him, but he wasn't perfect." So Rachel told the truth. Jack is worried about her too.
"Easy? No, your father was never easy. I haven't idealized him. I promise." I know exactly what I lost.
She dresses for work and goes to her downstairs office where she sees her most stable patients. In the middle of her last session, she remembers another riddle. On his planning calendars, going five years into the future, every August 15 was marked "C." The riddle is noteworthy because there were so few of them. Andrew was methodical, organized. And she knew him so well. The only unanswered questions after his death were the key, now answered, a half-dozen names in his address book, and "C" on August 15 for the next five years.
When her patient leaves, she goes upstairs, kicks off her shoes, and pours herself a glass of red wine. Drinking alone, a sign of alcoholism. But her choices are drinking alone or not drinking. She lights the fire. The kids, knowing she loves the fireplace, knowing that Andrew built the fire, gave her gas logs for Christmas. Now she has a fire with the turn of a key. Almost the real thing. She sips her wine and thinks of Candi with an i, Candi and Andy, "C" on August 15. What was that play -- Same Time Next Year? The idea is preposterous. Andrew was always home in August, or on vacation with her and the children. There was no yearly assignation, no assignation at all. When could he have done it? For the past ten years, his secretary sent her his daily schedule so she could head off any conflicts. They talked on the phone three or four times a day. Impossible that he could be seeing someone and her not know it.
She goes to pour more wine, and on the way back, stops in Andrew's study. His day planners for the last four years are lined up on a shelf. In every one, on his August 15 to-do list, she finds "C," rated A for must-do importance, checked off as done.
She looks up Candace Monroe in his book. An address in Johnson, Vermont. No phone number.
She changes into a long flannel nightgown and one of Andrew's golf sweaters. Puts a single serve popcorn in the microwave. More wine. How many Monroes can there be in Johnson, Vermont? She calls information. There's one. Charles Monroe. Automatically, she writes down the number.
Her stomach lurches and she realizes she has had much wine and little food. Skipping meals. A sign of alcoholism. A sign of depression. A sign of Alzheimers. Listing the lists on which this symptom would appear. In the freezer, a Lean Cuisine lasagna, beside the half-full bottle of Tanqueray. Gin and tonic. Andrew's drink, the drink he made for her when she was tired or upset or feeling good. She knows his secret -- the best gin kept icy cold. While the lasagna heats in the microwave, she finds a small bottle of Schweppes in the back of the refrigerator, fills her glass with crushed ice. "We bought the land so we could build the house so we could have a refrigerator with crushed ice so we could have perfect gins and tonic." How often did he say that? No limes. Shit. Andrew would never serve a gin and tonic without lime. "Oh well, Andrew," she says aloud, "nothing's perfect." The microwave beeps and she takes the drink and the lasagna to the table. The center of the lasagna is still frozen so she eats the edges as she stares out the window into darkness.
"Nothing's perfect," she says again.
Back in the living room, she picks up the phone and punches in the number. A woman answers on the third ring. TV noise in the background. "Hello, this is Dr. Louise Barker. I'm calling for Candace Monroe."
"This is Candace Monroe." Her voice is smaller than when she answered. Maybe the "doctor" has frightened her.
"I'm Andrew Barker's wife."
"I know." A silence. "I'm sorry for your loss." Louise hears Candace Monroe light a cigarette and inhale deeply. "Just a minute," she says. "Let me get to another phone."
While she waits, Louise picks up a framed snapshot of Andrew playing tennis. Jack is right, Andrew, you were not an easy man. You could wipe out six years of analysis and ten years of psychoanalytic training with one of your moods, turn me into a dishrag. I do not miss your moods.
And another thing. You really were a nag, Andrew. You couldn't accept the fact that mistakes happen. "What were you thinking?" you asked when I lost a credit card or twisted my ankle or broke a glass. Obviously, I was not thinking.
What if I turned that on you? What were you thinking when the accident happened? "Nobody's fault," the police said, just caught in a bad place between a van with a blowout and a semi. But you always drove a little too fast, tailgated a little too close. What were you thinking when you did that, Andrew?
The intensity of her anger surprises her. She hugs herself and takes a few deep breaths for control.
Candace Monroe comes back on the line. There's no background noise. "So, I guess Andy told you about me."
"Not exactly." Louise's mouth is dry. She hasn't planned what she will say. "I found some things."
"Oh." Candace Monroe is silent for a minute, then Louise hears a sound. She can't tell if it's laughter or crying. A deep breath on the other end. "Well, he said he'd never tell. I guess he kept every promise he made me."
"I see." Louise suddenly has a picture of how she looks, what she is doing. The widow, the drunken widow in a flannel gown, sweater, and crew socks, ferreting out her husband's secrets. Does she have a right to do this? Does she want to do this? She must because she goes on. "Exactly what promises?" she asks.
Suddenly the other woman laughs, a sharp bark. "Oh, God! It's not what you're thinking. Nothing like that." Another deep inhale. A pause. A decision being made. "Look, I don't want to hurt you, but I don't want you thinking the wrong thing about Andy."
Louise stops herself from correcting. This woman who presumes to tell her what to think about her husband has been given permission to call him Andy. "Please go on," she says. She knows how to make people open up. It's her job.
"It was all a long time ago, the summer after we graduated from high school. We were in love, and we went all the way." She giggles at the ancient euphemism. "It was the first time for both of us, and back then it really mattered. We knew it could ruin our lives, especially mine."
Louise remembers small-town morality in the early sixties, remembers when virginity was sacrosanct. There were good girls and bad girls, and no place in the middle for girls who made mistakes on summer nights.
"Anyway," Candace Monroe goes on, " it didn't last. You know, just a high school thing. When we broke up, Andy promised me two things. He said, 'I'll never tell anyone what happened, as long as I live.' And he said, 'You will always know that you were special to me.'
"I married Chuck the next year." She lowers her voice. "He doesn't know about all this. If I'd told him then, it might not have mattered. But now, it would be like I lied to him for thirty-five years. And when he saw one of the cards, I lied about that, too. Told him it was a life-time vow I made with a girl at church camp."
"I understand." Louise searches to find whether this hurts her. Andrew didn't lie to her. He just kept a secret. She thinks there's a difference. The content of what Candace Monroe just said sinks in -- "Cards? I don't understand."
"We made love the first time on August 18. Every year on that date, for thirty-six years, I got a card that said, 'I remember.' signed 'A.' Every year I'd get that card and I'd feel seventeen again. Seventeen and pretty and in love with the smartest boy in town. I cried this August when I didn't hear from him. It's like those two kids were dead." She realizes what she has said. "Oh, God. I'm sorry. What a thing to say. Look, I meant what I said before. I'm really sorry for your loss. Andy was a great guy."
"I understand." Louise knows she's on auto-pilot, reacting as she does in session to revelations she hasn't had time to process. She gets out of the conversation by invoking her "our time is up for today" mode, kind but firm.
She stares at the fire. She thinks of Andrew at eighteen, breaking up with this girl, trying to be honorable in a dishonorable situation. She thinks of him at nineteen, feeling guilty, sending a card, and at twenty. And after that, he was committed. Stopping the cards would mean that he had forgotten. That's an explanation that she can live with. But she knows there's more to it. He wasn't just being honorable. He was holding onto an old love, a first love.
Is she jealous? She thinks it over. Of course she's jealous. His promise to this woman excluded her. Every year for at least one day, he thought about another woman, someone besides her. But even as she thinks about it, the jealousy diminishes. It won't last. She knows this has nothing to do with her or Andrew's feelings for her.
The real pain, the pain that will last is the knowledge that she didn't know him completely. There was still much to learn. Someday, she knows, he would have told her about the gun. They would be arguing about something on the news and he would blurt it out. He would tell her why he had it and she would understand. Or not. Either way, she would have known his reasons. She would have known that side of him.
And given all the time in the world, in ten years, twenty years, maybe when Candace Monroe died, he would have told Louise about her. She can imagine it -- the two of them in their seventies, sitting in front of this fire -- a real fire Andrew made, not gas logs -- and him saying, "I had some sad news today. An old love of mine died." And he would have told her about it. And she would have known about the gentle boy whom the pretty girl called Andy. Would have known the middle-aged Andrew who held the memory dear.
To the list of things she misses, she adds the unfathomable pain of things she'll never know. Secrets not in the drawer. Mysteries she doesn't even know exist.
She looks at the family portrait above the mantle. The four of them, the children six and eight. "This is really a shit deal, Andrew," she says to her smiling husband. She finishes her drink and starts to cry for the first time that day. Even as she cries, she takes pride in not crying until ten o'clock on such a difficult day. If she were one of her patients, she would praise herself. "You're making progress," she would say. But she isn't her patient, and she knows things aren't getting better. Different, maybe, more sealed off, under control, but not better.
When she checks her watch, she finds it's a reasonable time to end the day. As she stands, she speaks to the portrait again. "It's really not fair to make me love you more after you're dead."
She takes her glass to the kitchen and puts it in the dishwasher, turns off the fire, double checks the security system, turns off the lights. She thinks of the gun. She goes to the closet and unlocks the box. Again she has the sense of seeing herself from outside. A depressed, middle-aged, slightly-drunk woman with a gun. Imagines rescuers wrestling her to the ground, wrenching it from her. "No," she says. "It's not that. It's not that at all."
The gun weighs more than she would have thought, and is surprisingly pleasant to hold -- cool and smooth, a masculine smell, of metal and oil. A well-balanced tool. This is my husband's gun. This was his.
She takes the gun to the king size bed where she has slept on Andrew's side for the past year, month, and a day. She sleeps with it against her cheek.