Anne Tyler - The Beginner's Goodbye

I left the house. I walked back to the street. (But, again, very slowly.) I got in my car and drove away.

Where she showed up next was the farmers’ market.

Of all places, the farmers’ market! The one in Waverly. I’d gone there on a Saturday morning to buy salad greens for Nandina. I looked up from the butter lettuce to find Dorothy at the next stall, examining the beets.

She used to act politely bored at farmers’ markets. She would accompany me, but just tolerantly, forbearingly, and she would stand around swallowing her yawns while I chose our vegetables for the week.

Also: beets? Beets are so labor-intensive. And they require a certain amount of culinary know-how. Besides which, she didn’t much like them. She only agreed to eat them because of the beta-carotene.

But there she stood, lifting a rubber-banded cluster of beets from the heap and studying it seriously, turning it over several times as if trying to learn it before setting it back down and picking up another.

I moved toward her as cautiously as if she were some skittish woodland animal. My feet made no sound at all. And when I reached her, I didn’t speak. I turned toward the beets myself and selected a bunch of my own. We were standing side by side, so close that even a breath caused our sleeves to whisper together. I could feel the warmth that her skin gave off through the cotton. It warmed my very soul; I can’t describe the comfort I felt. I wanted to stand there forever. There was nothing more I could have asked for.

The woman tending the stall said, “Help you?”

I shook my head, almost imperceptibly.

“You’ll want to use the tops of these, too,” she said. “Notice how fresh and green they are. All you do is boil them up first in a little salted water, say five or so minutes, and then melt you a lump of butter in a …”

Hateful woman. Hateful, loud, prattling, cackle-voiced woman. I felt a coolness at my right side, and I knew without looking that Dorothy was gone.

Then she came to Spindle Street.

To the street where my office is.

I’d been to lunch with Peggy and Irene at the little café on the corner. Irene went shoe-shopping afterward, but Peggy and I headed back to work, strolling at a leisurely pace because it happened to be an especially nice day. It was sunny but not too hot, with a little bit of a breeze. And Peggy chose that moment, wouldn’t you know, to attempt a heart-to-heart conversation. She must have figured she should seize her chance, since for once we had no audience. She said, “So.” And then she said, “Aaron.” She said, “So, how has your life been going, Aaron?”

I said, “My life.”

“Would you say that you’ve moved past the very worst of your grief? Or is it still as bad as ever.”

“Oh,” I said, “well …”

“I hope you don’t mind my asking.”

“No,” I said.

Which was true, I found. At that particular moment, I honestly did want to tell somebody what I was feeling. ( Share with somebody, I very nearly just said — not my usual language at all.)

“In a way,” I told Peggy, “it’s like the grief has been covered over with some kind of blanket. It’s still there, but the sharpest edges are … muffled, sort of. Then, every now and then, I lift a corner of the blanket, just to check, and — whoa! Like a knife! I’m not sure that will ever change.”

She said, “Is there something the rest of us could be doing to make it easier? Should we talk more about it? Talk less?”

“Oh, no, you’ve all been—”

Then I sensed a person walking on the curb side of me. She was several feet distant, but she was keeping pace with us. I sensed her roundness, her darkness, her silence, her intense alertness. I didn’t dare look over at her, though. I came to a stop. Peggy stopped, too. So did the other person.

I told Peggy, “You go ahead.”

“What?”

“Go!”

“Oh!” she said, and one hand flew to the satin bow at her neckline. “Yes, of course!” she said. “I’m so sorry! I’m — Forgive me!”

And she spun away and rushed off.

I would have felt bad about it, except that I couldn’t be bothered just then. I waited until she had run up the steps to our building and disappeared inside. Then I turned to Dorothy.

She stood watching me soberly, assessingly. She seemed as real as the NO PARKING sign beside her. Today she wore her black knit top, the one she’d worn the night we first kissed, but it was scrunched beneath the slant of her satchel strap as if she had just come from work.

She said, “I would have asked more questions.”

“Pardon?”

“We could have talked all along. But you always pushed me away.”

“I pushed you away?”

Somebody passed so close that his shoe nicked the tip of my cane, and I turned toward him for one split second, and when I turned back she was gone.

I said, “Dorothy?”

Pedestrians were parting around me like water around a stone, sending me curious glances. Dorothy was nowhere to be seen.

Weeks passed, and all I thought about was how to make her come back.

Was there some theme here? Was there some unifying factor that triggered her visits? The first time, I had been reflecting on our life together; but the second time, I’d been perusing the butter lettuce, for Lord’s sake. And the third time, I had been deep in conversation with Peggy. As far as I could determine, each set of circumstances was completely different.

“Nandina,” I said one evening, “have you ever … Did Mom and Dad ever … like, appear to you after they died?”

“Mom and Dad?”

“Or anybody! Grandma Barb, or Aunt Esther … You were always close to Aunt Esther, as I recall.”

Nandina stopped slicing peaches. (She was making one of her juice drinks for Gil.) She looked at me, and I saw that her eyes were glowing with pity. “Oh, Aaron,” she said.

“What.”

“Oh, sweetie, I wish there were something I could say.”

“What? No, really, I’m fine,” I said. “I was just wondering if—”

“I know you must feel as though you’re never going to get over this, but, believe me, one day you’ll … Oh, I don’t mean get over it — you’ll never really get over it — but one day you’re going to wake up and see that you still have your whole life to live.”

“I already see that,” I said. “What I’m asking—”

“You’re only thirty-six! Lots of men haven’t even begun their lives at thirty-six. You’re attractive, and smart. Some really nice woman is going to come along and snap you up one day. You probably can’t imagine that, but mark my words. And I want to say right here and now, Aaron, that I would wholeheartedly welcome her. I would welcome anyone you brought home to me, I promise.”

“You mean like last time?” I asked.

“You’re going to look back and say, ‘I can’t believe now that I ever thought my life was finished.’ ”

I could have told her that I worried more about my life stretching on and on. But I didn’t want her going all compassionate again.

One late afternoon when I’d stopped by our house, still with no sign of Dorothy, I went around back to where the oak tree used to stand. The tree itself had been carted away at some point, and even the stump had been removed and the hole filled in with wood chips. Gil had arranged for that. I remembered paying the bill, which was considerable.

I was thinking, Come see this, Dorothy. Come see what changed our world . But the person who came was old Mimi King, from across the alley. I saw her picking her way through my euonymus bushes. For once she carried no casserole, although she did have a bib apron on. Her gray hair was rolled into little pink curlers that bobbed all over her head. “Why, Aaron!” she said. “How nice to find you at home! I looked out my kitchen window and all at once there you were.”