I’m out to dinner with Ron. We lost touch ages ago, but he saw Chris’s obituary and contacted me. Back in the day, we’d all been friends, which is why I looked forward to reconnecting: He knew my husband when.
I was flattered that Ron reached out, but let’s put that in context: He has a wife, while I have no interest in re-upping. Chris may not be coming home, yet we’re still married. We didn’t divorce. Social occasions, however—to say nothing of companionship—are as rare as frozen mojitos in Hades. When you become invisible, as widows do, you welcome opportunities to reappear.
Here’s the other thing: Year 2 A.D. (After Death) is meaner and drearier than 1 A.D. The first year was a stop-motion via dolorosa, an inching forward one step at a time, shoulder to the heartbreak. Yet the agony was blunted by an odd sense of novelty and self-congratulation: Attagirl! You survived Thanksgiving . . . Christmas . . . New Year’s . . . the children’s birthdays . . . Valentine’s Day . . . Father’s Day . . . your anniversary . . . his fifty-fifth birthday (cancelled indefinitely) . . . his death day.
Somehow, it never occurred to me that the reward for enduring a round of celebrations-turned-scourges would be to lead our two children down the gauntlet again, with no more plums of condolence to sustain us. Those dried up midway through the first cycle of sorrow, shriveling to prune-ish hints that I was fucking up by not bucking up.
In 2 A.D., desolation strikes with the randomness of bird droppings. The present is still fraught; the future is still on indefinite hold, like calls to the IRS help line. To “move on,” as I’ve been advised to do, requires verve and vision. How much easier to gaze in the rearview mirror, while dining with a friend.
Only it isn’t.
Last year, when Ron was in town for business and we met for dinner, the conversation was effortless, despite the intervening decades. He was all here-and-now, though. He never mentioned Chris, let alone asked about his transplant ordeal, my post-nephrectomy health, or the children’s well-being. I’d hoped this time would be different. Not that I want to run on at the mouth about trauma over a plate of Grilled Salmon with Herb Gnocchi and Thumbelina Carrots. Acknowledging the reason we’re here, however, would be a show of respect to Chris, a courtesy to me. Ron’s only backward glance is to remark on how difficult I used to be.
Fair enough, because I was . . . am (though I’ve been treated for PTSD fairly successfully, if I dare say so myself). Actually, I respect Ron’s honesty. What bothers me is that Chris is ignored, again. To be alive and invisible is one thing, to be deceased and invisible is another. Amid the clink-clacking of tableware, the plashing of water into goblets, the crescendos of laughter near the bar, I detect ultra-low-frequency sounds: warning rumbles.
As a wet-behind-the-ears widow, I was willing to overlook some obtuseness, to forgo a bit of emotional connection for social connection. Not now, not in 2 A.D. There’s a long, barren road ahead. Every ounce of energy I expend going forward must provide sustenance in return. Chitchat is not sustenance; chitchat is empty calories.
I’ve always enjoyed this restaurant. The food is well prepared, without being precious; the decor is sleek, yet the waiters aren’t slick. We often came here as a family. Chris preferred a nearby pan-Asian restaurant with a bustling, open-kitchen atmosphere. While that’s also a favorite of mine, this dining room is more sedate, easier on the ears for conversation.
I’m barely hearing what Ron is saying. Is that growth on his forehead a teratoma? He should have it looked at; some are cancerous.
Our conversation could be occurring between strangers. Or not even. Strangers would be asking questions, getting acquainted. That’s the problem: We presume to know each other. How could that be, though? Hell, I don’t even recognize myself. Where’s the persona I spent a lifetime constructing?
Once, I could lay claim to advanced degrees, sought-after positions, publications and awards. Now my curriculum vitae has shrunk to “unemployed single mother.” Job applications go unacknowledged, and every month, when Social Security deposits a widow’s benefit in my bank account, I become a conservative-pundit cliché. Call it what you like, but I’m on the dole.
Ron is recounting his highly profitable negotiation of a real estate deal—of which he’s proud, and rightly so. All the same, I’d rather listen to my friend Bill recount his wife’s battle with breast cancer; Linda, her daughter’s treatment for depression; Liz, her husband’s ambush for divorce. (“What do you think is easier,” Liz asked, “when a husband dies or when he walks out?” Without hesitation, I replied, “When he dies,” so wretched was the thought of Chris bomb shelling our 34-year bond, to then divvy up assets and kid-time.)
It’s not that I like dwelling on misfortune; it’s that misfortune, alas, is more interesting. Tales of familial joy, of neighborhood comity, of roads to success traveled without wrecks, washouts, or run-ins with moose on dark, snowy highways—those are non-stories. No conflict? No resolution required. Hence, no narrative.
A friend once confided that, in her early twenties, she’d committed her mother to a psychiatric hospital. My first question: “How did you do that?”—which told her my childhood had also been fraught, and that I wanted specifics. She described leaving the house to make her SOS call from a phone booth, so that Mom wouldn’t know an emergency team was en route. Hers was a tale of gumption and pathos. Compare that to: Mom quintupled her inheritance on the stock market and vacationed in Monaco every year. You get the point.
Ron gets the bill. Having paid the last time, I concede, but I cover the tip.
Oh, to have been a Victorian. They knew how to deal with death, prescribing mourning wear for a year, with the option of two, for adults and children. Some widows wore black for life. A subdued wardrobe not only honored the deceased, it also blazoned “handle-with-care,” shielding the bereaved from forced normalcy. Back then, mortality arrived too early, too often to be denied, while dying naturally usually meant dying at home. Nowadays, hospitals, hospices, and funeral homes isolate the critically ill and departed, which enables presumptions: that you can exercise, pill-pop, or treat your way to imperishability; that those who die are somehow defective; that anyone who grieves beyond a year is “stuck.”
Ron and I head to my car, so that I can drive him to a nearby Metro stop. We won’t be meeting again. He doesn’t do death; I don’t do people who don’t do death. Also, a friend chided me for dining out with a married man. If Chris were alive, he wouldn’t care; if our places were reversed, I wouldn’t either. Ron’s wife, however, might feel differently.
As I pull into the station’s Kiss and Ride lane, he fishes for direct service to his hotel. “You’re really going to make me take the train?”
Now I’m ungracious. If difficult fits, ungracious rankles. I gave flesh to save my husband’s life. Must I spend an hour driving downtown to save Ron twenty minutes on public transit? While the children wait for me at home?
“Sorry.” I smile as he gets out, add a wave as he crosses in front of the car.
At nine o’clock the drop-off lane is deserted. I pull forward, no rearview required.
Gaye Brown’s work has appeared in the Lowestoft Chronicle, Georgetown Review, Washington Review, Nathaniel Hawthorne Review, Months to Years, and Adoptive Families magazine, among other periodicals. In 2020 and 2016, she was a finalist for a Maine Literary Award, and in 2023, for a Witness Magazine Lit Award. Formerly, she directed the publishing programs of the Smithsonian’s American Indian and American Art museums, and later was a writer-researcher for Time-Life Books.
Photo by Leeloo Thefirst