She found love notes they had written to each other, bringing back memories of the lean days when Edward started his own practice, a Thanksgiving dinner without a turkey, summer picnics and winter sleigh rides, and her first pregnancy and both of them reading and playing classical music to Beth while she was in the womb, and the love letter Edward wrote when Tim was born, and the gold-plated apple Edward had given her when she began teaching, and a hundred other wonderful things that brought tears to her eyes. His death was like some cruel magician’s trick. One moment Edward was there, alive, talking, smiling, loving, and the next moment he had vanished into the cold earth.
I’m a mature person. I have to accept reality. I’m not mature. I can’t accept it. I don’t want to live.
She lay awake through the long night, thinking how simple it would be to join Edward, to stop the unbearable agony, to be at peace. We’re brought up to expect a happy ending, Mary thought. But there are no happy endings. There’s only death waiting for us. We find love and happiness, and it’s snatched away from us without rhyme or reason. We’re on a deserted spaceship careening mindlessly among the stars. The world is Dachau, and we’re all Jews.
She finally dozed off, and in the middle of the night her wild screams awakened the children, and they ran to her bedside and crawled into bed with her, hugging her.
“You’re not going to die, are you?” Tim whispered.
Mary thought: I can’t kill myself. They need me. Edward would never forgive me.
She had to go on living. For them. She had to give them the love Edward would not be able to give them. We’re all so needy without Edward. We need one another so terribly. It’s ironic that Edward’s death is harder to bear because we had such a wonderful life together. There are so many more reasons to miss him, so many memories of things that will never happen again. Where are you, God? Are you listening to me? Help me. Please help me.
Ring Lardner said, “Three out of three are going to die, so shut up and deal.” I have to deal. I’m being terribly selfish. I’m behaving badly, as if I’m the only person in the world who is suffering. God isn’t trying to punish me. Life is a cosmic grab bag. At this moment, somewhere in the world, someone is losing a child, skiing down a mountain, having an orgasm, getting a haircut, lying on a bed of pain, singing on a stage, drowning, getting married, starving in a gutter. In the end, aren’t we all that same person? An aeon is a thousand million years, and an aeon ago every atom in our bodies was a part of a star. Pay attention to me, God. We are all a part of your universe, and if we die, part of your universe dies with us.
Edward was everywhere.
He was in the songs Mary heard on the radio, in the hills they had driven through together. He was in bed at her side when she awoke at sunrise.
Got to get up early this morning, honey. I have a hysterectomy and a hip operation.
His voice came to her clearly. She began to talk to him: I’m worried about the children, Edward. They don’t want to go to school. Beth says they’re afraid that when they get home I won’t be here.
Mary went to visit the cemetery every day, standing in the icy air, mourning for what was lost to her forever. But it gave her no comfort. You’re not here, Mary thought. Tell me where you are. Please.
She thought of the story by Marguerite Yourcenar, “How Wang-Fô Was Saved.” It was the tale of a Chinese artist condemned to death by his emperor for lying, for creating pictures of a world whose beauty was contradicted by reality. But the artist cheated the emperor by painting a boat and sailing away in it. I want to escape too, Mary thought. I can’t stand it here without you, darling.
Florence and Douglas tried to comfort her. “He’s at peace,” they told Mary. And a hundred other cliches. The easy words of solace, except that there was no solace. Not now. Not ever.