I’m still rocking and blubbering when the policewoman answers the door and Meena rushes in.
“Oh my God, Judith. Are you all right? What happened? Is Nate . . . is Nate really . . . gone?”
I nod and cry as she throws her arms around me.
“I’m here. I’m here for however long you need me. Just tell me what you want me to do and who you want to call.”
Once the hugging and swaying dies down, the policewoman stands in front of me. “I’m very sorry for your loss.” She hands me her card. “I’ll be filing a report. If there’s anything you’d like to add to what you’ve already told me, please be in touch.”
Everything that follows moves in slow motion. The kids come home, and I’m way too freaked out to adequately cushion the blow. I have always put them first, but what I’ve done is too big to be pushed aside or shared. I was seriously contemplating divorcing their father. Then I let him die while I was issuing ultimatums. I made his last minutes all about me.
“Will you be all right?” Ansley asks. “I can’t imagine you without each other. Whenever one of my friends’ parents got divorced, I felt so sorry for them. I knew you and Dad would be together forever.” Tears stream down her cheeks. “I just assumed you’d have longer.”
Hannah rubs her back. “They were lucky to have each other as long as they did. Not everyone finds their soul mate.”
Now I’m crying, too. Hot, salty, guilty tears. The last time we were together as a family, I was angry that their father went to Europe without me, disappointed in the gift he gave me, furious at being dismissed as a good egg. Pretending to be happy for their sake.
“You gave us an example of what marriage could be,” Ethan says. “Most of my friends spent years watching their parents fight and their families come apart. They got shuttled back and forth and had to deal with stepparents and stepsiblings. Running all over the place on holidays. I always felt so lucky that you and Dad had such a great marriage. It made me feel secure, you know?”
I’m having trouble breathing now. But I’m grateful for the scrim of tears that keeps them from seeing not only my shame but my relief. That I did not destroy their childhood memories by tearing our family apart. That they didn’t have to see their father as I came to see him.
“He loved you both so much,” I say, confident that this at least is true. “And he was incredibly proud of you.”
Is it wrong to be glad that they came home for a funeral rather than a divorce?
* * *
• • •
The church is full for Nate’s funeral, an impenetrable blur of bodies and faces. I try to listen to the service, but the roaring in my ears remains, and I stare numbly at the casket. I know Nate is wearing his favorite blue suit and lucky tie, but I can’t stop seeing him naked, with his head lolling to one side.
After the service, Ethan, Ansley, Hannah, and I are ushered into the funeral home’s black limo. In it, we follow the hearse, clutching one another’s hands.
At the graveside, I try to focus, but I keep imagining my husband trapped in the casket, being lowered into the ground. Covered with dirt. Where he will lie alone in the dark. Forever.
Our house is packed with people by the time we arrive. Meena orchestrates the receiving and arrangement of the casseroles, without which no one in the South is allowed to mourn, and charges Stan with tending bar and lubricating the guests, beginning with me.
I accept condolences from old neighbors and a smattering of new ones, from Chickin’ Lickin’ store managers and longtime employees. From tennis partners and golf buddies. From the kids he helped coach on Ethan’s soccer teams.
I cry at each accolade and memory. But even as I mourn Nate and our life together, my sorrow is laced with fear that my guilt will show through. That people will see it in my eyes, hear it in my voice. That they’ll know that Nate was only “going through the motions” and that I had consulted a divorce attorney and was attempting to draw a line in the sand while Nate was gasping out his last breaths.
The long-standing members of book club are there in full force. Each in their own version of mourning. Wesley and Phoebe wear matching black blazers. Carlotta has on the perfect little black dress.
Sara looks like she’s in mourning herself. Annell embraces me and tells me how sorry she is. Stan refills my glass. Each time he gives me a hug and says, “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Meena brings glasses of water to counter the alcohol and treats me as if I might break. She gives no hint that she knows exactly how Nate died, that I am drowning in guilt, that I am not the typical grieving widow. Widow!
Angela and Jazmine serve as Meena’s “seconds,” taking and retrieving coats, replenishing food platters, ushering drinkers to the bar. They join the ranks of those making sure I have food and drink even though I’m only interested in the alcohol, which blends with the Xanax and allows me to listen to other people try to say the right things while I attempt to do the same.
But inside the fog that fills my brain, it’s still all about me. My loss. My anger. My guilt. My mistake.
“Your marriage was such an inspiration,” Dolly, a member of the neighborhood ALTA tennis team, says. “It’s rare to see people so happy.”
“Oh, God. I . . . I can’t . . . I’m sorry. Please . . . excuse me.” I bow my head to try to hide the tears and race from the room.
Murmurs of concern follow me as I pound up the stairs.
For possibly the first time in my adult life, I am forced to abdicate even the illusion of control. There’s nothing I can do about what has happened. There’s nothing to arrange or choreograph. But I feel as if there’s an awful lot to hide.
Sara
Judith’s husband is dead. Apparently, he suffered a heart attack at home in his own bed. A prime example of “here one minute, gone the next,” which is, I believe, how we’d all like to go.
I went to his funeral yesterday and spent most of the service wishing it was Mitch in that casket.
At least Judith’s husband didn’t choose to die. And he had the good manners to do it in his sleep. Probably with a smile on his face.
I haven’t smiled in weeks. Because my husband is in another city procreating. As if he has every right to live as many lives as he likes while I take care of his mother and keep the home fires burning.
Judith is allowed, even expected, to mourn, while I’m consigned to living in limbo. Still married in the eyes of the law and pretending that all is well. That Mitch is just commuting for work and not living another life that includes children he refused to have with me.
It’s been weeks since the surprise visit to Birmingham, and although I’ve been too hurt and angry to even attempt to reach Mitchell, I’ve overheard Dorothy leaving angry messages. Exhortations to at least “do the right thing,” by which I think she means coming to get her and divorcing me, which she actually described as “setting the poor woman free.”