Stephen Dixon: Love and Will: Twenty Stories

Jill took her hand away from her mouth. He forgets what Esther was doing at the time. She was probably just lying peacefully or squirming a little but on her back. But why’d he pick this particular memory? It’s the one that came to him, that’s all. It could have been one of any number of memories that came to him when he just sat back and let things enter his head. The time his mother died. (He was in the hospital room.) The time Esther was born. (He was in the delivery room.) The time he and Jill got married. (It was in the living room of the apartment she and Esther now live in.) The time he learned his brother’s plane had disappeared. (He was in his sister’s living room.) The time Jill ran into the bathroom with her nightgown on fire. (He was on the toilet. She had said from the kitchen only a half-minute before “Do you smell gas?” He had said “No, why — you mean real gas? Do you?”) The time Jill accepted his marriage proposal. (He was on his knees in her living room, his arms around her legs, crying, while she was rubbing his head with one hand and with the other trying to get him to stand.) The time an ice cream popsicle stuck to the entire top of his tongue. (He was standing on a busy street corner, pointing to his mouth and gagging. The ice cream vendor got in his truck and drove off. A man said “Don’t pull on it, kid. It’s the dry ice it was packed in. Pull on it and you’ll take off half your tongue. Just let it melt a few minutes and it’ll come off on its own.”) The time Esther fell, though it actually seemed she had flown, down a flight of stairs. (They were in the summer cottage they rented and which Jill still rents. He was in the main room, working at his desk. Something made him look to his left and he saw her flying headfirst down the stairs. The staircase was in the hallway around twenty feet away, but he missed catching her by just a couple of inches at the bottom of the stairs. He doesn’t see how that was possible. He must have seen her on one of the top steps, about to fall, and jumped out of his chair and ran to the stairs.) The time they took Esther to the hospital. (They were in their car, minutes after he’d missed catching her at the bottom of the stairs. He was driving. Esther was in Jill’s lap in the rear seat, a compress on her nose, towels around her bleeding head. A rabbit jumped across the road and he swerved but hit it. The rabbit flew over the car and landed about fifty feet behind them. He’d hit it while it was in midair. Jill screamed. Esther was unconscious.) The time they waited while the doctors and nurses treated Esther. (It was outside the hospital examination room. They thought she was going to die. One of the doctors had said a few minutes before “I don’t know if you know it, but she may die.” Jill said “Listen, you imbecile. I know we were negligent, but now’s the stupidest time in the world to remind us.” The doctor said he didn’t mean it that way. Jill said “You did too.” Carl pulled her into him, said “Don’t argue, don’t bother, don’t worry, it’ll all turn out all right. It’s got to be all right. I’ll go crazy if she dies.”) The time they buried his father. (Cemetery.) His mother. (Same cemetery.) The time he came home from summer camp and his parents said they’d given away his dog.

Jill said to him “—died.” He said “Who?” “—Kahn.” “What? I’m not hearing you for some reason. Who?” “Gretta Kahn. Gretta Kahn. She died two days ago, Monday.” “Oh Jesus, that can’t be. It can’t. What are you talking about? That was Randi on the phone, right? So what’s she got to do with Gretta?” “Not your niece, Randi. Gretta’s oldest son, Randy. He called from Charleston. Gretta died in San Diego. A massive heart attack, he said. She was visiting Mona. And because he knew she was such a good friend of ours—” “Her daughter?” “Mona, her daughter and Randy’s sister, yes. They’re having the funeral in San Diego — something about it’s easier to, not the expense — and just wanted us to have the option of coming. I told him I didn’t think we could. I was right, wasn’t I?” “Come on,” he said, “she was too healthy. Anyone but her. Besides, it’s too ridiculous. For it was just around this time of year last year—” “That’s right. It’s like a medical prophecy come true, except it’s the reverse of what frequently is supposed to happen in that frequently it’s the husband who dies a year after his wife.” He remembers she cried, they talked a lot about Gretta that night, neither of them slept well, and this went on for two or three days. She was one of their best friends. And of their best friends, she was just about the nicest of them and the one they loved most. Or else it seemed that way at the time. Was it so? He thinks it was, and if it wasn’t, then she came as close as anyone at the time to being the nicest of their best friends and the one they loved the most. They didn’t have many friends that both of them considered their best friends. He had best friends, she did. A few they shared. Or he had several fairly good friends, she had several very good friends, and a few of her very good friends he considered fairly good friends of his. What’s he talking about? Gretta was a very good close friend of them both. They talked about deep serious things together, all three of them or just when he or Jill was with her. Sometimes. Sometimes they just had a good time together, when not a serious subject or mood came up. Jill and he didn’t go to Gretta for advice, either separately or together, and she never came to either of them for it, but when they were with one another, separately or together, they often talked about the most important things in their lives, past or present, including what was bothering them most. When he or Jill were alone with Gretta they also occasionally talked about their respective spouses, something they didn’t do with Gretta’s husband Ike and Ike didn’t do with them, talk personally about Gretta or about anything deep or serious that might interest either of them, though they still considered him to be one of their dearest friends, because he was so generous and warm and Gretta’s husband, though maybe not one of their closest. He remembers trying to bring Gretta back then in his thoughts. Three years ago. He remembers that a day or so after Gretta died he said to Jill when the phone was ringing “Maybe that’s Randy again, saying it was only a joke and Gretta isn’t dead.” He remembers Jill saying “That’s crazy” or “too bizarre for me.” “I know that was crazy or too bizarre,” he remembers saying after he or she finished talking to whomever it was on the phone, “what I said about Gretta before, but it was what I wished most. That it had been a joke. To lose Ike one year, Gretta the next? To lose them both? All a joke. For Randy or Mona or whatever the other son’s name is — Gene — to say on the phone ‘Gretta and Ike are alive. They said they’ll explain everything when they get to New York and see you all.’” He remembers lying in bed the next few days thinking of the various ways she could be alive. That it was a seizure of some kind where she appeared dead but wasn’t. Or she had been dead but was revived. Where they’d get a letter from Gretta the next day or so explaining why Randy gave Jill that message and why she had to send this letter instead of making a phone call. That it was a bet. That it was part of a plot. That it was a chain of almost inconceivable false and incompetent medical reports from hospital to doctor to Gretta’s children. It took him a while to get used to her death.

He hears a shower turned on behind him. He turns around. The shade’s down, woman’s singing. Both their windows are open. The weather’s been gray and unseasonably cool the last few days but has warmed up in the last hour and the sun’s now out. He looks at the sky. He recognizes the melody she’s singing but can’t make out the words. He shuts his eyes and listens. She’s singing in French, but he’s almost sure the song’s American. She has a sweet voice. Professional, almost. For all he knows about singing voices, professional. Dulcet was the word Jill used for a voice this sweet. Jill knew about voices. She listened to opera, lieder and madrigals a few hours a day, once wanted to be an opera singer, sang in several languages in the shower sometimes but would never do it with the window open or so loud. “Sweeter than sweet,” she said, “is when you use ‘dulcet,’ or at least when I use it.” He doesn’t know if he’d recognize this woman if he saw her on the street. For one thing, it’s been a long time since he’s seen her in the shower. If he saw her and recognized her would he introduce himself? He doubts it. Of course not. Would she recognize him if she saw him? He doubts it. Maybe she would. Maybe she’s already seen him on the street and recognized him several times while all to some of those times he might have looked straight at her but didn’t recognize her. He wouldn’t mind meeting her. He knows no woman to go out with. He hasn’t been to bed with a woman since Jill, though he has been out with a number of them but never more than once or twice each. The third or fourth time is when you often get to go to bed together. He wonders if he should call Jill. He’d ask how she is. She’d say fine, probably, but why did he call? “To find out how you are and to find out, of course — how could you even ask that? — how Esther is.” “You spoke to Esther this morning,” she could say, “you’ll see her this weekend. She’s having her supper now.” It’s around that time. He looks at his wrist. His watch isn’t on it. Where’d he leave it? This could lead to a minute or two of panic. Watch, pen and wallet, all quite valuable when one considers the wallet’s contents, and all given to him by Jill. Sentimental value then? Not only. But when they’re out of his pockets and off his wrist, he likes to keep them together. The dresser. He goes into the bathroom, sees the three of them and his checkbook and keys on top of the dresser, looks at the watch. He should buy a clock. A small one, that doesn’t tick. It’s five after six. Just around the time she’d be eating. He used to like feeding her. “Baby eat meat,” she used to say. “Baby eat corn and peas, no beans,” though she used to pronounce them “con and peats.” Used to like putting the bib on her, making sure her hands were clean and if they weren’t, washing them with a little warm water on a dish towel and drying them with the towel’s other end. Now she feeds and washes herself, though sometimes when she insists he lets her eat with slightly dirty hands. Now she tucks the napkin into her shirt or spreads it out on her lap, though sometimes he lets her use her sleeve. He used to like feeding her spoonfuls and forkfuls of food, touching the cereal with his tongue before he gave it to her to make sure it wasn’t hot. Squeezing orange juice for her almost every morning, every so often squeezing quarter of a grapefruit to add to the glass. He was usually the first up. Around six. Esther around seven. Jill around eight. Putting her to bed — he liked that too. Bathing her first, though the one who bathed her usually wasn’t the one who then read to her and put her to bed. And after he washed her but while she was still playing with her water toys or the soap in the tub, massaging and brushing and flossing his teeth and gums and then applying that sodium bicarb-peroxide paste. He didn’t like giving her shampoos. Liked rubbing her back to get her to sleep. Making love with his wife while the baby slept in the same room. She was always so receptive. His wife was. They loved each other, and he thinks the baby, as much as a one-to-two-year-old could, loved him then too. What went wrong? Why did it have to go wrong? Were there several or many things wrong or just one main one? He still loves Jill but she no longer loves him. That’s what she’s said so that’s what he has to believe. He should go out. Take a walk, see what he sees. Not a movie. Maybe step in for coffee someplace, regular or espress. Maybe a beer. No beer. He doesn’t like drinking in bars alone. Doesn’t like eating out alone. Coffee in some stand-up place or on a coffee shop stool is still okay.