The Actor and the Housewife (31 page)

“I do not! I mean, I’m just recording thoughts, I don’t remember every—”

“Poo.”

“What?”

“Poo. I’m saying poo. Poop. Poopy poop. Poo everywhere. Poo on your head, poo between your toes, poopy poopy poo.”

She started to laugh, and that laugh broke into another laugh, and she stuffed her face into her pillow to keep laughing without waking the kids, and soon he was laughing, quietly, in that tight way he did to keep from being in pain. She put her arms around his neck.

“You’re right. And I’m going to remember every word.”

“Mmhmm, that was the plan.” He kissed her forehead.

“What’s the difference between poo and poop anyway?”

“Poo is what goes in the toilet; poop is what you find on your front lawn.”

“So is poo determined purely by its maker, or does it refer to its semiaquatic state?”

“Uh . . . all I got is poo. You’ll have to ask Felix about the details.”

“He is the poomeister.”

“Is he?”

“Naw, I just liked the way it sounded.”

They lay there, foreheads touching, staring at each other’s eyes. It was enchanting to see what the dark and the closeness revealed about Mike’s eyes, how the familiar became strange, alien even. And beautiful too. So complex. Rings and marks and colors, roundness and flatness and intricacy. Eyes were the most amazing things in all creation, she thought. Mike’s eyes especially.

“Bec,” he whispered after a time, breaking her transcendent contemplations about eyes, “when I’m gone, it’s okay for you to fall in love—”

“Don’t—”

“I want you to hear this now and remember every word and go scritch scratch in your journal. You’re forty-four years old—that’s only half your life. If you have the chance to fall in love again, I want you to take it. If you find someone who could be a good surrogate father to the kids, don’t turn that down. I’m giving you permission.”

“I don’t want—”

“Well, I’m giving it anyway.”

He stroked her hair. She let him. She wasn’t going to argue. If he needed to believe that she could move on, so be it. But she knew her own heart. And there was no possible chance.

She’d met her Unattainable Crush (Felix) and had the opportunity to fall romantically in love with him. How many people get that chance? Their number-one choice, their sigh-and-dream fantasy man, their tiptop unreachable ideal? He’d asked to kiss her, and she’d laughed. It had been unthinkable, unintelligible, unimaginable that she would ever choose Felix over Mike. So if her fantasy man fell so far short when compared with her husband, how could there be anyone else even remotely adequate?

No, Mike was all she’d ever want. The memory of him would be enough to sustain her in a desert. She had bonded with him, merged into one, half of her contained within him. That couldn’t happen twice in a life. And besides, he was still very real, very warm and near, and she breathed in his smell and pulled him in tighter.

They’d been lying like that, foreheads pressed together, his hand on her hair, her arms around his neck, for minutes or hours. Maybe they’d both fallen asleep for a time and woken again. Even after that long space of silence, their conversation still hung about them, like spiderwebs dangling from the trees, tickling her face, reminding her that there were creeping things about.

“I love you,” she said, meaning, only you, only ever you.

He said, “You want to argue with me still. I can tell. What are you holding back?”

She grumbled.

“What?”

“You said I was forty-four. I’m forty-three.”

That made him want to kiss her. And he did, until they both fell asleep.

Becky didn’t argue with him about the future. And he didn’t need to bring it up again—just as he suspected, she did remember every word. There was no need to squabble. They just tried to live each moment perfectly.

The paradise in limbo lasted exactly three weeks. Then overnight, Mike worsened. They sped away from the cabin on the quiet lake and back into the valley, back into the white hospital room with constant watching and things that beeped. Two days later he died in the night while she slept beside him, holding his hand.

Untitled

“I miss Daddy,” Sam said, as he curled up tight in his bed, his forehead to his knees. Becky’s insides were sliced by those words. She lay beside him as he fell asleep, her belly against his back, her arm over him, tucking his hands into hers.

She couldn’t talk to her kids without touching them, holding their hands, petting their hair, rubbing their backs. She had an instinctive need to feel them, hold them, almost afraid that if she wasn’t tangibly aware of their presence, they would cease to exist. Sam needed the touch, Hyrum tolerated it, Polly melted into it, and Fiona gave it in return.

Of all the kids, Becky worried most about Hyrum because of his silence. The others talked to her and to each other, could say words like “I miss” or “I’m sad” or “Why?” and “What now?” But Hyrum rolled up and shut off .

“Hey, sweetie.”

“Hi.”

“We’re going to Uncle Greg’s for dinner. They got a new Play-Station and Aunt Carolyn is making that chicken casserole with the potato chips on top.”

“No thanks.”

“Honey, we’re—”

“No thanks.”

There was no time for Becky to grieve. She was grieving for her kids, she was praying and working for the kids, her heart beating for Hyrum. And for the first week, she was a rock. Family was everywhere; she never had a chance to be alone and think.

Melissa made herself present, doing a fine impression of a bulldog whenever she thought people were bugging Becky too much. Neighbors came by to deliver meals and flowers, but if they lingered, Melissa was on her feet and walking them to the door.

“They need to learn—they’re here to give, not to get,” Melissa said as she locked the door.

Diana drugged her sister at night to make her sleep, alternating various sleep medications so that “you won’t get addicted.” And in the daytime there was the funeral to arrange and Mike’s life insurance and pension and the bills and the kids. The kids, the kids. And writing countless thank-you cards for all the dinners and flowers. It hardly seems fair that she should be expected to fulfill that task at such a time, does it? But she did. She never even considered letting it slide.

Felix was there for the funeral. When he came through the front door, she toddled to him, and he swept her up and held her for a long time. She didn’t cry. She just let herself be held. It was the most relaxed she’d been all week. Usually she was the one holding others. Melissa was right in a way—when the neighbors and friends came to offer condolences and hugs, they really wanted something from her. They needed to feel that they were helping somehow, making her feel better, and so asking for their own comfort. She was constantly giving her energy over until it was peeled away layer from layer. Sometimes, she felt like raw bone.

Except with Felix. He just held her.

But soon she was pulled back into family and food and planning, and he was swept into the corner. She barely spoke to him, and he didn’t insist himself on her. Sometimes he sat on the couch and sang with Polly or read books with Sam. Once she looked out the kitchen window and saw him kicking a ball around with Hyrum. That sight gave her heart a happy spark.

She wasn’t sure when Felix left Utah, but a few days after the funeral, a landscaping service showed up to weed and mow the lawn, saying they’d been paid in advance for the next two years. They also planted perennials in ecstatic colors. Nice mute fall colors would’ve been appropriate for September, but her yard was roiling with bright pink, yellow, and orange. The landscaper left a card that read, “In lieu of flowers. Call for ANY reason. FC.”

Postfuneral, things were calming down, visitors slowing, the house emptying, the scores of bouquets on every table or countertop in the house wilting at once as if on cue, the air thick with a sticky sweet miasma of decay. Polly, who had seemed okay for a couple of days, splintered suddenly and wept through dinner over her bowl of minestrone soup.

“Can you put it into words?” Becky asked. “Are you angry, are you in pain? Confused or heartbroken, exhausted or sick to your stomach? It helps to stick words on it.”

“There’s a pain here,” she pointed to her chest, “like I’m on my back and a boulder is pinning me down.”

Fiona nodded, absently rubbing her own chest.

“And I keep thinking,” Polly said, “about how Dad asked me to come out in the garage and help him restring his fishing pole. He didn’t really need my help, I could tell. He just wanted some company. And I said no because I was watching TV.”

“When was this?”

“When I was in third grade.”

“Oh, honey. That was so long ago, and he knew you loved him. You had so many good hours together, that one time doesn’t matter.”

“It feels like it does,” Polly said, chin quivering.

“I know, sweetie. Let’s put a name to it—guilt. That one will get you too, just as nasty as heartbreak and anger, but sneakier. It’ll skulk up behind you and bite your ankles.”

“Like a hyena,” Sam offered. “That’s how they down their prey. They bite their ankles so they can’t run away.”

“Hamstring ’em,” Hyrum said, his eyes still on his soup.

Becky was careful to keep her voice even so Hyrum wouldn’t suspect how happy she was that he’d spoken. “Exactly. That’s perfect. Guilt is the hyena that’ll lunge from behind and hamstring you.”

“And hobble you so you can’t walk,” Polly said.

“Or even stand,” Fiona said.

Becky nodded. “Sam, if you were lost in an African night and you saw the glint of hyena eyes in the brush and knew they were coming for you, what would you do?”

Sam scooted up taller. “I’d kick ’em! I’d keep kicking back until I heard their yelps. Hyenas are the cowards of the animal kingdom, you know. They only attack easy prey. One good boot . . .” Sam kicked at the air. “Oof!”

“That’s my boy. Will you do it for Polly?”

Becky pulled Polly, still on her seat, away from the table and Sam circled around, kicking at imaginary hyenas.

“Yay! Hi-yay!”

Fiona joined him (she was such a good sport) and Becky too, and the three of them did a pagan dance around Polly, kicking and hollering. Polly giggled once. Hyrum watched from his chair, arms folded, but he didn’t leave for his room.

Becky’s heart was eased a tiny amount by the sound defeat of the hyenas, and so her guard was down. When she was brushing her teeth that night, she looked at the mirror and an unbidden thought leaped into her head: I won’t have to clean Mike’s toothpaste spittle off the mirror anymore.

The thought caught in her throat like a fish bone. Defiantly she thought, Or hang up his coat, or remind him to return his library books, or cook his eggplant—his stupid, slimy eggplant. She went on, counting fifty things she’d never have to do again, ticking off each one as if jabbing herself with a needle. Because it was her fault, somehow. She should have been able to keep him alive, somehow. She’d failed him; she’d failed the whole family. And she wanted to feel all the pain she deserved. All the pain in the world. Let it press down on her, let it crush her under its hard heel, let it burrow inside her bones, sputter and seethe and burn bone to ash.

She repeated this ritual each night and went to bed feeling chafed and bloodied and hopeless. Some days she toyed with the idea of blaming God, but it was futile. Becky had always believed that God had a master plan, an understanding beyond her ken. Blaming him for any suffering in life made as much sense as Hyrum blaming her for a scraped knee. “You brought me into this life, so any pain I feel is your fault!” There was some attraction to this philosophy, but neither her logic nor her faith would allow it. Darn it. No, that wasn’t satisfying enough.

“Damn it,” she said aloud. Then she got bolder, using words only Melissa said in her hearing, shouting phrases even Felix avoided. She swore and spit and cursed till her face turned red.

It didn’t help.

But for the kids, she was still a rock. At dinner each night, she had them name the zoological onslaught of their pain. Sorrow, they decided, was a raven, dark as night, that perched on your shoulder and ate away at your heart. Grief, as opposed to sorrow, was a crow that sat on your other shoulder and pecked at your eyes so you couldn’t see clearly. Anger was a rhinoceros that gored you from behind, spurring you to holler and run.

“What are you feeling today, Sam?” Becky would ask.

“Angry,” he’d say. Sam was mostly angry, because he liked to fight the rhinoceros, which involved imaginary weapons. Though one night he admitted that he was sad—an enormous toad sitting on his head, making him feel wet and cold and too weighed down to move. The only way to fight the sadness toad was with lots and lots of hugs.

Hyrum’s patience couldn’t withstand the sadness toad. Hyrum went to his room.

Sam played along with his mother’s ritual, and Fiona did too. Polly mostly did. Usually Hyrum watched. Sometimes one of the kids would ask, “What about you, Mom?”

So Becky said, “The anger rhino is goading me because in this life my kids don’t get to see their father anymore,” or “The worry scorpion has got me to night, crawling under my clothes and stinging, because Hyrum is so quiet,” or dozens of other worries and sorrows about her kids. That’s all she would allow herself.

During the daylight hours, her sole concern was their comfort. But at night, with the kids asleep, she entered her bedroom and faced her old nemeses—silence and solitude. That’s where the smoldering grief flared up and consumed her to ash over and over again. She had a great deal of sympathy for Prometheus and wondered how often he wished that liver would just stay eaten.

With blaming God not an option, of course she blamed herself. She shouldn’t have bought Teflon pans or served bacon on Saturday mornings or allowed the million other innocuous carcinogens into their home. Or she should’ve sensed Mike’s illness earlier. Or loved him enough to prevent anything bad from ever happening. Mike’s death was her fault, so she wasn’t allowed the honest pain of grieving. She deserved nothing more than being turned into a pillar of salt.

Please, God, turn me into a pillar of salt.

And so she hardened, and stilled, and while others might not have found her any more savory than usual, she felt the crackle and shift in her bones, the numbness settle into her skin. And she fancied if she moved too quickly or felt too much, she would crumble and fall apart.

“You should talk more,” Becky’s mother said, nestled close beside her on the couch. She came over almost every morning now, so Becky wouldn’t be alone while the kids were at school. “I’m afraid you’re not taking care of yourself.”

“I showered today,” Becky offered.

“Your hair is still shiny, even at your age.” Alice smoothed her daughter’s hair, her blue eyes wet. “Mine went dull at thirty. You are so pretty.”

“Mom . . .”

“You are.”

She pulled Becky into her, hugged her, pressing her lips to the top of her head. And Becky sighed into the embrace. It was good, a touch that she needed. Alice comforted that Becky who was still a little girl, soothed her tender part, her innocent part. But the Becky who had failed her children and let her husband die would not be comforted. That part closed up, a fist tight with guilt.

Her guilt was unquestionable (yes, she was on a first-name basis with those yipping hyenas). For example, Mike had loved golf. But it was an expensive hobby, and he didn’t want to leave the family for hours on a Saturday. Watching TV golf had been his way to keep up with his passion and still be a good father. But so many times over the years she’d scolded him for it. Why? Why hadn’t she let him just enjoy it? Because she was wicked, unforgivable refuse. Clearly.

Each night, Becky lay on her her huge, empty bed and let the hyenas go to town.

She was sorely tempted to replace the king bed with a smaller mattress, one that didn’t seem to scream, “YOU SHOULDN’T BE IN HERE ALONE! HOW DARE YOU LIE HERE ALONE!” She wanted nothing larger than a twin, or a sleeping bag, or maybe a bassinet. But she wouldn’t risk alarming the kids. So she stacked pillows on Mike’s side, enough to push against her while she slept, leaving her a narrow strip, her arms and knees hanging over into space.

“I’m pathetic,” she muttered.

She was not one easily crushed by the problems of life—Polly’s asthma, Mike’s layoff in 1994 and those eight months when they lived on savings and unemployment checks, Hyrum’s fight-you-every-step-of-the-way-ness, even Mike’s illness. She could always deal. We’re a family. I am Warrior Mother. Everything will work out.

It was shocking to face herself de-shelled, the limp worm of a snail.

The weeks that followed the funeral, when things (horribly, inexplicably) returned to normal, Becky nestled into numbness. She stopped taking sleeping pills, and the lack of rest turned her into a zombie. She pushed through each day. For the kids. Smiled and cooked and cleaned up. Took dinner to neighbors when someone had a new baby or the fl u. Put on a content face. She detected a quiet tug on her soul, and interpreted it as a reminder that if she sought divine help she could feel some peace. She refused it. The numb pain Mike’s death left behind was the most tangible part of him she still possessed, and she refused to let go.

Later she supposed she’d been throwing a spiritual tantrum. I want to suffer! You can’t make me not suffer! You think you can comfort me? Ha! I will hold my breath until my soul turns blue—see if I don’t!

When people inquired after her, it was easy to divert attention.

“How’s my Becky today?” Melissa asked on their now biweekly lunch date. Her brown hair was long and straight, free of purple streaks, and she’d recently taken to wearing nonprescription cat-eye glasses as a fashion accessory.

“Good. The kids are perking up even faster than I could’ve hoped. Sam’s—you know Sam. Can’t keep him down for long. And Hyrum,” she sighed with a little relief. “His cousins are teaching him to snowboard and that’s all he talks about. But he’s talking. Polly and Fiona are blessed with oodles of friends, lots of outlets to talk about the loss.”