Diane Cook: Man V. Nature: Stories

I picture myself running. My nightgown billowing behind me, my hair loosening from a braid as I speed along. Finally it comes undone and free. I hear the dogs behind me. I see the forest darkness in front of me. From across the field a figure races toward me. But I’m not scared. It’s him. My friend. We planned it. We’re running so that when we reach the woods we can be together. I feel hopeful to be running across this field toward something I want, and I don’t remember the last time I felt such a thing. Just like that, I know why the women run.

I find at the end of this fantasy I am weeping, and so I write it down in a letter to my friend. I write it as a proposition, though I’m not sure it is one. I just want to know if he would agree to it. It’s another way of asking, if we weren’t both poor wretches, would he choose me? I don’t know why, but it’s important. I’m desperate to find out. Maybe I’ve changed. The manual says that in order to move on, we must change. But this change feels more like a collapse. And that is not how the manual says it will feel.

I open my window and the wind pinks my cheeks. I like it. The wind brings the smell from the field and even from the trees. It smells good out there, past where I can see. The dogs are silent now. Maybe the runner made it. I shake my head at the night. I know it’s not true.

My window friend is gone.

At bingo I search for him. I want to explain my absence, tell him I was moved, while discreetly slipping the letter into his pocket. I can’t find him. Another man follows me around, trying to grab my hand; he whispers that he has hidden riches no one knows about. Finally a guard from the men’s shelter intervenes, takes the man by the arm. I ask about my friend, and it turns out he was chosen. The guard says he left a few days ago. I ask how many exactly. “Just two,” he says, a little sheepishly. I’m destroyed. I say, “Two is not a few,” and return to my room. It is painted a buzzing shade of yellow, and I hate it. The desk is even bigger and emptier now that I’ve stopped pretending to read. The floodlights from the pen have been left on. They blaze through my window all night.

The next day I slog to lunch, but I can’t eat. I play with my food until the cafeteria empties. Then my Case Manager calls me in. Her eyebrows are raised, imploring. She opens a file, and in it is the letter I wrote to my window friend. I had hidden it under my mattress. I can’t even muster surprise. Of course they would find it.

“I wasn’t really going to run,” I say. “It was just a fantasy.”

“I know.”

She pushes the letter to me.

I read it. My handwriting is looped and sleepy. The pages are worn. I wrote a lot, and reread it obsessively to make sure it was right. Reading it now makes me blush. In the letter, I am begging. My tone near hysterics. I promise that we’ll find a house, unoccupied in the woods, abandoned years ago. That we’ll forage for our food, but that eventually we’ll find work, even though all the jobs are spoken for. I insist we’ll be the lucky ones. We’ll have a family, a house with a yard. He’ll have a nice car, and I’ll have nice things. We’ll have friends over to dinner. We’ll take a vacation each year even if it’s a simple one. We’ll never put off something we really want to do, or something we want now, like children. We’ll never fight over silly things. I won’t hold a grudge, and he’ll say what he’s feeling instead of shrugging it away. I won’t be irresponsible. I won’t buy bedding we can’t afford. And I’ll be more fun. I’ll be game. I won’t insist he tell me where we’re going when all he wants is to surprise me. I’ll never cook him things he doesn’t like because I think he should like them. I won’t forget to do the small things like pick up the dry cleaning or rake the leaves in our yard.

Of course, I’m writing to my husband.

It reads as if we’re fighting and he’s stormed out, is spending nights on a friend’s couch. Here is my love letter, my apology: please come home.

I look up.

“Be sensible,” my Case Manager says, not without some kindness. “I can’t put your name on any list until you’ve shown you’re moving on.”

“But when do I grieve?”

“Now,” she says, as though I have asked what day it is.

I think of the man from across the road, my window friend. But I can’t even remember what he looks like. I try to picture him in his room, but all I see is my husband, waiting, in his plaid pajamas and woolly slippers. He shakes a ghostly little wave. I can tell from his shoulders he is sad enough for the both of us.

For a couple of weeks I allow myself a little moment. I scrape other women’s leftovers onto my plate. I eat the treats my old floor still sends, even though I don’t like them. I barter for snacks with some rougher women who somehow had it in them to set up a secret supply business. Now my pants don’t fit. My Case Manager finally intervenes. She says even though we live in a progressive time, it’s probably not a good idea to let myself go. She gives me some handouts and a new exercise to do that is, literally, exercise. “Get that heart rate up,” she says, pinching the flesh above my hip.

I know she’s right. We are all dealing with our situation differently. At night, some women cry. Other women bully. Others bake. Some live one life while dreaming of another. And some women run.

Each night a new alarm sounds, the dogs, the lights. In the morning I’ll see who looks ragged, as if she spent a futile few hours flying across the barren tract to the forest, only to be recaptured. I’ll also look to see if anyone is missing. I still secretly hope she, whoever she was, made it, and I feel twinges of curiosity at the thought of such a life. But they’re just twinges. Not motivation. I have nothing to run to. What I want, I can’t have. My husband is gone. But while I work to let him go, there are other ways to feel happy. I read that in the manual. I’m willing to try them out. My Case Manager says this is healthy.

Eight months into my stay at the shelter for widows and other unwanteds, I am chosen. My Case Manager is proud of me.

“That’s a respectable amount of time,” she insists.

I blush at the compliment.

“The knitting helped,” she notes, taking quiet credit for suggesting it.

I nod. However it happened, I’m just glad to have a home.

My new husband’s name is Charlie and he lives in Tucson and the first thing he bought with the dowry was a new flat-screen TV. But the second thing he bought was a watch for me, with a thin silver cuff and a small diamond in place of the twelve.

My Placement Team takes me to a diner on the outskirts of town, where Charlie waits in front of a plate of pancakes. He has girlish hands but otherwise he is fine. The Team introduces us and, after some papers are signed, leaves. Charlie greets me with a light hug. He is wearing my husband’s cologne. I’m sure it is a coincidence.

I am his second wife. His first wife is in a shelter on a road that leads to the interstate outside Tucson. He tells me not to worry. He didn’t cause their broken marriage. She did. I nod, and wish I had a piece of paper so I could take notes.

He asks me how I feel about kids, something he certainly has already read in my file. I answer that I’ve always wanted them. “We’d been planning,” I say. There is an awkward silence. I have broken a rule already. I apologize. He’s embarrassed but says it’s fine. He adds, “It’s natural, right?” and smiles. He seems concerned that I not think badly of him, and I appreciate that. I clear my throat and say, “I’d like kids.” He looks glad to hear it. He calls the waitress over and says, “Get my new wife anything she wants.” There’s something in his eagerness I think I can find charming.