Joyce Oates - Sourland

But this was wrong of course. Everyone in the waiting room was alive. She was alive.

“I am — alive.”

Alive. It was such a curious boastful word! It was such a tentative word, simply to utter it was to invite derision.

She was thinking how, on what was to be the very last day of her husband’s life, with no knowledge of what was imminent she and her husband had made plans for his discharge from the hospital in two days. They’d read the New York Times together. Tracy had insisted on Adrienne bringing him his laptop and so he’d worked — he was determined to examine the copyedited manuscript of a lengthy article he’d written for the Journal of 20th-Century European History — though complaining of his eyes “tearing up” and his vision being “blurred.” He’d eaten the lukewarm lunch, or part of it — until he’d begun to feel nauseated and asked Adrienne to take it away. They’d quarreled — almost — over whether Adrienne should call Tracy’s parents, to deflect their coming to visit him — an arduous trip for them, from northern Minnesota — since he was being discharged so soon, and was “recovered, or nearly” — Adrienne had thought that Tracy should see his parents, who were concerned about him; Tracy had thought otherwise, now that he was “feeling fine.” The hospital allowed visitors until 9 P.M. but Adrienne left at 7 P.M. since Tracy had become tired suddenly and wanted to sleep — Adrienne was exhausted also — maintaining her cheery hospital manner was a strain, like carrying heavy unwieldy bundles from place to place and nowhere to set them down, until at last you drop them — let them fall — she’d managed to drive home and was in bed by 9:20 P.M. and at 12:50 A.M. she’d been wakened as in a cartoon of crude nightmare cruelty by a ringing phone and in her dazed sleep she’d thought That is not for me. That is not for me even as, groping for the phone, she’d known that of course the ringing phone was for her, she’d known that the ringing phone had to be for her and she’d known, or guessed, what the call was.

Mrs. Myer? Your husband is in critical condition, please come to the hospital immediately.

“Mrs. Myer? Come with me, please.”

Time had passed: an hour? Two hours? Adrienne was being led briskly along a corridor to the Office of the Surrogate. The name on the door was D. CAPGRASS. Her heart beat quickly. She’d stood so swiftly, blood had rushed from her head. Don’t let me faint. Not here, not now. Not this weakness, now. It had become confused in the widow’s mind — such fantasies are exacerbated in steam-heated waiting rooms, in hard-backed vinyl chairs — that her obligation in Surrogate Court was an obligation to her deceased husband, and not to herself; it was her husband’s estate that was to be deliberated, the estate of which she, the surviving spouse, was the executrix. If this can be completed. Then …Adrienne’s thoughts trailed off, she had no idea what came beyond Then .

Crematorium is not the polite term. Funeral home is the preferred term.

There she’d made arrangements, paid with their joint credit card.

Tracy Emmet Myer was a co-owner of this card. Tracy Emmet Myer was paying for his own cremation.

Ashes to ashes, dusk to dusk. The nonsense jingle ran through the widow’s brain brazen and jeering as the cries of a jaybird in the trees close outside her bedroom windows, that woke her so rudely from her sedative sleep.

“Mrs. Myer. Please will you sign these consent forms” — a middle-aged bald-headed man with eyeglasses that fitted his face crookedly and stitch-like creases in his forehead was addressing her with somber formality. Without hesitating — eagerly — Adrienne signed several documents — “waivers” — without taking time to read them. How she hoped to placate this frowning gentleman — an officer of the Mercer County Surrogate’s court. “And now, you will please provide these required documents, which I hope you’ve remembered to bring” — frowning as the widow foolishly fumbled removing folders from a briefcase — the deceased husband’s birth certificate, and her own birth certificate; their marriage certificate…

Quickly Adrienne handed over the marriage certificate. She could not bear to see what was printed on it and, long ago, gaily and giddily signed by her husband and her.

“And your husband’s death certificate, Mrs. Myer?”

Your husband’s death certificate. What an eccentric form of speech — Your husband’s . As if the deceased husband yet owned “his” death certificate.

Your husband’s body. Your husband’s remains.

Adrienne fumbled to hand over the odd-sized document. Though it had been newly issued and was scarcely twenty-four hours old yet it was creased and mud-smeared as if someone had stepped on it. Adrienne murmured an apology but Capgrass silenced her with an impatient wave of his fingers.

“This will do, Mrs. Myer. Thank you.”

With a pencil-thin flashlight the Probate Court official examined the death certificate — was this infrared light? — and the ornamental gilt State of New Jersey seal. The document must have been satisfactory since he stamped it with the smaller gilt seal of the Surrogate’s Office which bore, for some reason, quaintly and curiously, the just-perceptibly raised figure of a horse’s head, or a chess knight in profile.

“Oh — why is that? This seal — why does it have a horse’s head on it?” Adrienne laughed nervously.

“It is the Court’s seal, Mrs. Myer.” Capgrass paused, as if the widow’s question was embarrassing, a violation of protocol. “May I see —? Have you brought —?”

“Of course! Of course.”

As the primary beneficiary and executrix of her late husband’s estate Adrienne was required to provide photo I.D.s of herself and her husband — she’d brought drivers’ licenses, passports — as well as IRS tax returns for the previous year — documents attesting to the fact that she and the deceased Tracy Emmet Myer had lived in the same residence in Summit Hill, New Jersey.

To all these items the frowning Capgrass subjected the same assiduous examination, with the pencil-thin light.

“Now, Mrs. Myer: may I see your husband’s Last Will and Testament .”

This was the single document that most unnerved Adrienne. She’d had difficulty locating it in her husband’s surprisingly disorganized filing cabinet and she’d been unable to force herself to read more than a small portion of the opening passage — I, Tracy E. Myer, a domiciliary of New Jersey, declare this to be my Last Will and Testament, and I revoke all my prior Wills and Codicils…

Nervously she said, “I hope this is complete, Mr. Capgrass. It’s all that I could find. I’m not sure what ‘codicil’ means. I’m afraid that…”

“Hand it here, please.”

Leafing through the document of about twenty pages Capgrass paused midway.

The expression on his face! Adrienne stared uneasily.

“Mrs. Myer, this is — this is not — this is irregular .”

A crude blush rose into the middle-aged official’s face. His eyeglasses glittered in alarm. Rudely he pushed the document toward Adrienne — at first she couldn’t comprehend what he wanted her to see, what she was looking at — then she realized it was a page, or several pages, of poorly developed photographs of stunted, broken, naked figures — death camp survivors? — manikins, or dolls?

“I don’t understand. What is — ”

Numbly Adrienne took up the offensive pages, to stare at them. How could this be? What were these ugly obscene images doing in her husband’s will? She was sure she’d looked through the will, or at any rate leafed through it — if barely recognizing what she saw, for she’d been upset at the time, very tired, and the densely printed legal passages had seemed impregnable, taunting. Now she saw that she was staring not at printed passages but at photographs — blurred, not-quite-in-focus photographs as of objects seen underwater — bizarre disfigured manikins, or adult dolls, some of them missing arms, legs — bruised, blood-splattered — several of them hairless, bald — all of them naked — and all of them female.