Richard Ford - Let Me Be Frank With You

“How are you! ” I say, aiming for the optimistic high road. I’m still on my feet, hot as a poker, my heart racing. I’m not taking off my coat. I’m not here for that long, even though there’s no set time for me to stay. I just don’t want to stand here half-eyeing ripe vaginas. Whatever their mission, it’s accomplished.

“I’m just fine. Thank you.” Ann’s chin has become minorly stabilized. “Do you see what I bought?” She takes an appraising, curatorial step away from the door in the direction of the vaginal portraiture, regarding them as if she now saw something new she liked.

“What’d you buy those for?” I say. “They look like pussies.” Lying is forbidden.

“Oh.” Ann gives them a stagy moué then raises her chin in mock re-assessment. “Do you think so? I think they just look like fruit. I suppose I can see what you might mean. Do they make you uncomfortable?”

“They started to give me a boner. But it changed its mind.”

“I see,” Ann says and pretends to fan herself. She and I never experienced boner problems back when. “We should change the subject then.”

“Fine.” I glance out the picture window, thinking of the Yeti, plodding his or her slow way through the dark woods toward Skillman. Snow is sifting through the exterior light cone that brightens the duck pond. No ducks are there.

Ann sits on the front edge of one of the flower-print chairs, arranges her hands on her velour knee like a demure elderly lady — which she is. Boner and pussy talk are over. Her hands aren’t trembling. I feel like a man who’s just committed a violent act in his sleep and snapped awake. Though all I’ve done is drive out here in shit weather, deliver a pillow, and get unexpectedly hot and gamy feeling.

“I’ve been taking a class here called Deaths of Others ,” Ann says.

“That’s interesting,” I say insincerely.

“It is ,” she says. “Our topic has been whether suicide is a religious issue or a medical one. People talk about that all the time here.” She smiles at me savagely.

“I think it’s all a matter of space,” I say, looking around to find something — not her, not the venereal art, not the picture window with the lighted pond — to fasten onto. There’s really not much here, which is the Feng Shui way. “At some point you just need to leave the theater so the next crowd can see the movie.”

“Elderly white men are in the suicide demographic,” Ann says, “along with young American Indians, gun owners, residents of the Southwest, and people abused as children.”

“I’m one for five,” I say. “I’m safe.”

“I’d never find the nerve.”

“Most people who try to kill themselves fail, but then they’re pretty happy about it later. Nobody’s first choice is being dead, I guess.” We both read the same magazines, though I don’t see an Economist on the coffee table.

“Are you still donating your mortal remains to medical research?” Ann says, primly.

I know what she’s doing. She’s angling toward telling me she’s bought a cemetery plot in Haddam cemetery — near our son Ralph’s grave — in the “new part,” which is no longer new. She and I used to meet there on his birthday when we first were divorced. We read poems to console each other. Long, long ago. Ralph would be forty-three. I hardly remember him. Though I can hear his voice.

What Ann doesn’t remember, speaking of “destination memory,” is that I know all about her plans and have for months. Clarissa told me when she informed me Ann was moving back to Haddam. Ann herself has told me twice. We’ve talked about it — though only briefly. She talked. I listened. I’ve also twice told her I’ve decided not to leave my “mortal remains” to the Mayo Clinic. As the moment when that might actually happen grew closer, it began giving me the willies. The Mayo people were completely sporting about it. “Two out of six change their minds, anyway,” the woman said, clicking along merrily on her computer, erasing me off the donor list. “We manage fine, though. I don’t blame you. It seems pretty icky to me.”

“No,” I say. “I’m not.” This, pertinent to my mortal remains.

“I’ve decided to be buried near Ralph,” Ann says in a firm voice, hands still on knees, looking very pretty. If we knew what made women attractive all things would be very different.

I notice, though, she’s biting the inside of her cheek — hard enough to tighten the skin in her soft face and possibly quiet a tremor, which doesn’t quite work. The drugs she takes may make her do this. Her face looks suddenly despairing.

“That’s a good idea,” I say.

“Where are your arrangements?” She blinks. What else can I do but stand here?

“Same place,” I say. “Well. Not the precise same. But near enough. You know?”

“Okay,” she says. Ann Dykstra is (or was once) one of those staunch middlewestern females who, to any serious assertion, spontaneously says “okay.” By which she could mean, “Really?” Or “I’m not so sure I like that .” Or “I agree but not wholeheartedly.” Though also, “Sure. Why not.” Which is what she means now. Sure. Why not.

Only, when she says “okay” I catch, as if in my nostrils, the faint, rich whiff of our old life long ago. A whole world in a moment’s fragrance. It is not unwelcome.

Burial plans have now possibly become the new bedrock issue — not fruit paintings, not hurricanes, not whether I loved her once or didn’t. It’s an improvement.

“Sally’s working very hard over on The Shore, isn’t she?” Ann’s thinking of the hurricane even now, perhaps of the things it caused that no one quite realizes. Sally has told her about her work, including the proper use of the “empathy suit”—useful teaching tool in the grief-assuagement business.

When Ann decided to make the move to here, she spent extravagant time and effort to “surrender” old Mr. Binkler to “a family,” since he wouldn’t be welcome in “the community,” what with allergies and all the doggy business. The only taker was someone in Indiana. Ann insisted on driving to La Porte to interview old B’s prospective new parents. But that wasn’t allowed, the rescue people said. The next thing you knew, she’d want him back. It had happened before, with bad results. The plan fell quickly through, and Binkler was left without a port in his last storm. Ann then decided, after much agonizing and crying, to have poor old B “humanely put down.” Our daughter, of course, went ballistic. But Ann did it, speaking of empathy. This, too, I suppose, can be attributed to the hurricane’s fury.

“She is,” I say, referring to Sally’s efforts in South Mantoloking.

“She’s a great seeker, isn’t she, Frank?” Ann smiles at me warmly, no longer biting her cheek. Her chin is at it again. Though my name on her lips has made her happy. I, for this moment, cannot tolerate looking at her and have to stare around the room. It is only an instant — partly good, partly terrible — and will pass.

“She likes to help people,” I say. “Always has.” Don’t presume the past. Be nice.

“Second marriages don’t get all embroiled with the difficult first principle questions, do they?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve had two. Two second marriages. Both better than when I married you.”

Whip-crack- POW! I didn’t see that welling up. Though I should’ve. Remember Binkler.

“I see,” I say. “That’s good then, Ann.” Her name is bitter in my mouth. For years, I couldn’t speak it, avoided all opportunities when it came up — in particular when I spoke to her . Now, though, I can use it, as I have no reason to except as my instrument. A weapon. “You’re lucky if you’re happy once,” I say. Not a lie. My eyes fall sadly to the pillow I’ve dutifully brought. I wish I could just go to sleep on it.