Wish You Were Here: Chapter 10

             

When Henry and I got back to the house, I collapsed on the living room sofa in a big sweaty heap.  I almost asked Henry to go grab me an ice water and then remembered his grabbing abilities weren’t what they used to be.

            “Please tell me that’s it for the day,” I said.  “Please tell me that you don’t have any other plans.”

            “You can rest for a little while,” he said.  “But we still have one more thing to go through.”

            “What?”

            “The closet.”

            I didn’t even try to stifle my groan.  Boxes were lined up next to the front door, waiting for the big Goodwill pick up on Monday.  Thinking about Henry’s closet and what a clothes horse he had become in his late 20s made limbs limp with exhaustion.

            “Why do we have to do that now?” I asked.  “Can’t we just do that next weekend?”

            “Do you have something more important to do?” he said.  “Like staring at the wall for 48 hours at a time like you’ve had a tendency to do for the last six months?”

            “Well, there hasn’t been anything good on TV.  It’s rerun season.”

            “Let’s go.”

            I hauled myself to my feet and got some water from the kitchen on the way to the bedroom.  I set the cup down on the nightstand and walked into the bathroom to open the closet.  A wave of heat greeted me as I walked in, one of the things I disliked so much about this townhouse.  When we had been house-hunting, the weather had been nice so we didn’t even notice that no vents had been cut into the closet, giving it neither air-conditioning nor heat.  This meant that on the few cold days we had during winter, we ran in and grabbed our clothes as quickly as possible (usually still wet from the shower we had just taken) or melted in the summer when the heat and humidity were unbearable.

            “I’ve always told you to keep that door open so the air circulates,” Henry said behind me.

            “And I’ve always told you to keep a neater closet so that if I kept the door open, it wouldn’t give me a headache every time I walked past it.”  I pointed over to his side, his shoes in a jumbled pile and his jeans and t-shirts in a messy heap (probably mildewing) on the floor.  As much as this little idiosyncrasy bothered me, I hadn’t had the heart to clean it up in the months since he’d been gone, leaving it exactly as he had the day he walked out the door for the last time.

            “Well, now’s your chance,” he said.  “Let’s get to it.”

            I pulled a box into the closet and slowly bent down so that I could sit and start going through his shoes which were meant to be neatly stacked on the organizer, but instead were just piled in the corner of the closet.

            “I still don’t understand why you couldn’t just bend down every night and put your shoes on this rack,” I grumbled as I threw the shoes into a box.

            “I was too excited to see your lovely face every day when I got home from work,” he said, in a false sentimental tone.  “I just wanted to throw my work clothes off and be by your side as soon as I possibly could.”

            “Yeah, right,” I said, picking up a pair of flip-flops and holding them up to him.  “By the way – and I really should have told you this years ago – you really don’t have the toes for these.”

            “What?” he said, his tone shifting from sentimental to offended disbelief.  “What do you mean?  I have great toes!”

            “No, you don’t.  And believe me, I don’t love you any less for this.  But your toes are a weird shape, more gorilla than human.  And they’re hairy.”

            “You’re nuts!  My toes are works of art.”

            “Oh, please.  Don’t even get me started on the nails.  Do you want me to show you the scars I have on my legs from sleeping with you for seven years?”

            “Will you be able to see those scars through all of the black hair?”

            “Jerk.”

            “Sasquatch.”

            At that moment, the phone rang and I heaved myself to my feet to try and catch it before whomever it was hung up.  I had to run to the kitchen since my bedroom phone was now inoperable and caught it on the fourth and final ring.

            “Hello?” I said breathlessly.

            “Jane?  It’s Emily.”

            “Emily!  I’m so glad you called me back.  Listen, I am so incredibly sorry about what happened last night….”

            “Well, I won’t pretend that I wasn’t surprised.”

            “I know.  I was pretty surprised myself.”

            “Jane…why didn’t you tell me all of that before?”

            “I don’t know,” I said, feeling uncomfortable.  “I guess there was a part of me that didn’t really know how upset all of that made me.  And the other part just thought it was easier letting you all think that everything was okay.”

            “Sweetie, of course we don’t think it’s okay,” she said.  “Henry being gone…it’s been hard on us all.  Dan and I don’t even pretend to know all that you’re going through.  We talk all of the time about how if this is how sad we are, imagine how Jane has been feeling.”

            “I know.  And I know that you and Dan have been upset about all of this, too.  Sometimes I just don’t want to upset you more than you already are by bringing up everything that I’ve been going through.”

            “Can I be honest with you?”

            “Of course.”

            “It upsets us more when you don’t tell us.”

            “Oh.”

            “I mean, we’re not stupid.  We know that you’re struggling in your own way.  But when you don’t talk to us, it makes us feel like we haven’t just lost Henry, we’ve lost you, too.”

            Silent tears started streaming down my face, making the phone wet.  The lump in my throat was so enormous, I couldn’t get any words out.

            “I know that you think that we’ve just been bopping right along and that this hasn’t affected us much,” she continued.  “But we think about Henry every day.  We just never know when you really want to talk about him and we don’t want to butt in where we’re not wanted.  We’ve been taking our cues from you.  And I guess that’s been the wrong thing to do.”

            “No, it hasn’t been wrong,” I said, my voice shaking.  “I haven’t given you much of a choice.  I think I shut everyone out in the beginning because I was so scared of what had happened to my life.  And then I blamed you all for not being as involved or noticing when things bothered me.”

            Emily was quiet for a moment.

            “Jane?”

            “Yes?”

            “Can we try this again?”

            I breathed a sigh of relief.  “Yes.”

            “Okay, we’re starting from scratch with this whole widow thing.  You’re going to start being completely honest with us and we’re going to start being completely honest with you.  We want to know what you’re feeling and what makes you upset.  But you have to remember that Dan and I can’t help but have thoughts about what’s going on.  We know that we’re not in your shoes, but whatever we say, I want you to always remember that it’s coming from a place of love.”

            “Emily?”       

            “Yes?”

            “I think Henry was right.”

            “About what?”

            “We do sound like a traveling Oprah show.”

            Emily’s laugh over the phone was like magic to me.

~

            Henry and I continued to work on the closet for the rest of the day on Saturday.  We made piles of what should be kept, what should be donated, and what should be sent to his parents.  We argued about the huge stack of t-shirts from college that I just couldn’t bear to part with, him saying there was no point in keeping them and me trying to convince him that I was short on t-shirts anyway.

            “When are you ever going to wear a t-shirt that says ‘Bungee jumpers have fun going down’?” He asked.  “Or that shirt I got from that Boston concert fifteen years ago?”

            “I don’t know!”  I said.  “But I love your shirts.”

            “You hated them when I was alive!  In fact, I remember you telling me at one point that I was not allowed to buy one more article of clothing until I got rid of at least ten t-shirts!”

            “Well, it’s not your decision now, is it?” I said angrily.  “You up and died on me!  And now you’re pushing me to throw things away that I don’t want to get rid of.  I really don’t know why you should have any say in what I keep and what goes.  It’s my closet space now!”

            Henry looked beyond irritated with me and I’m sure the fact that I’d just thrown his current physical (or non-physical) state in his face didn’t help.  We had always enjoyed a balance of power in our relationship and, needless to say, that run-in with a Fed Ex truck had caused that balance to shift.  He knew more about certain things than I did (which I hated), but as far as what went on in the real world, there was really nothing he could do about it.  Which was my revenge.

            We sat there in a cold silence until Henry had an idea.  “Hey…remember that weird girl, Kate, in your apartment building?  The one who dated the guy we swore was a transvestite and raised frogs?”

            “Henry.  If this is your way of trying to change the subject, it really sucks.”

            “No.  Remember how she had that blanket on her couch?  The one made from all of her dresses when she was a kid?”

            “You mean that quilt?”

            “Yeah.  Maybe you could have someone make a quilt out of my shirts.”

            I thought about that for a minute and said, “You know, that’s not such a bad idea.  But I don’t know how to do that.  You were the sewer.”

            “Shut up.  I was not.”

            “Well, you were better at it than I was.  Remember that time I tried to sew that button back on to my sweater and knotted up the thread in the back so bad I couldn’t even button it?  You had to rip it out and sew it back on the right way.”

            “I got an A in Home Ec in middle school.”

            “Yeah, well, I had to take it twice.”

            “Surely we can find someone else to do it,” he said.

            I tripped over the boxes and made my way into the office where I turned on the desk lamp and powered up the computer.  Emails started to download at a rapid pace, several from my mother who was, no doubt, reminding me to buy toilet paper because she was afraid that in my current mental state I might just start using grass from the front yard.  I hit the button for the internet and Googled “commissioning a quilt” and after looking at a few websites, I came across something that might work.

            “Henry.  Look at this.”

            He leaned over my shoulder and read:

MEMORIAL QUILTS

Having difficulties deciding what to do with the clothing left by the passing of a loved one?  Have a quilt made!  You choose the size and complementary colors and I will design a quilt based on the clothing that you send me.  I am also able to scan in pictures of your loved one and print them on fabric!

Wrap yourself up in memories!

Contact Ava today!

            I thought about all of those nights spent alone, sitting on my couch, and missing Henry.  Suddenly, those visions changed to me wrapped up in a blanket of him, the t-shirts that had been pieced together soft from years of clothing Henry.  I didn’t know if I wanted any pictures of him on it, but I could envision the backs of the shirts cut into squares so that I would be covered in Henry’s history, enveloped in him.  Just thinking about it made me feel a little less homesick and even closer to him than I was now.  It would be a physical part of him that could finally wrap me up once more and comfort me when I needed it.

            “Email her,” Henry broke the silence.  “Email her now.”

~

            That night, as I was getting ready for bed, exhausted physically and emotionally from all that I had done that day, Henry sat in his usual spot on his side of the bed while I stood in the open doorway of the bathroom brushing my teeth.  At this point, even though I had gotten used to seeing him, I still wasn’t used to how he seemed to be changing.  I could faintly see his pillow through him and the muted stripes from the comforter in his lap.  But before I could point this out to him, he spoke up.

            “I won’t be with you tomorrow,” he said suddenly.

            “What?” I said, with my hands in my mouth, flossing my teeth.  “What do you mean?  Where are you going?”

            “I have a few things I want to take care of.  And I want to leave you for a little while.  I think you need some time alone to digest what’s happened.”

            “I’ve spent enough time digesting!  I’ve been digesting for the last six months!  I have emotional indigestion!  Grief induced reflux!  Come on…can’t you do what you need to do on Monday while I’m at work?”

            “No…I think you need a day on your own without me or work as a distraction.  I know that for the last few months you’ve been lonely.  But I think that’s partly because you need to get used to being alone.”

            “I am used to being alone!”

            “No.  You’re not.  You’re still fighting it.  Come on, Jane!  Do something for yourself!  Go to a movie you know I wouldn’t want to see!  Go shopping!  Get a pedicure!”

            “Hey, I hardly think I need to take advice from someone with toes like yours.”

            “You’re missing the point,” he said.  “I know that you wish I could be here to do so many things with you.  But I can’t.  Even though I’m here now, it’s not like I’m really here.  Do something for yourself.  Be completely, totally, and utterly selfish for a little while.”

            I turned back to the mirror in the bathroom and started washing my face, my mind blank, trying to come up with what I would possibly do the next day without Henry there to occupy me.  I thought and thought…until finally inspiration struck.

            “I might call Paula from work,” I said.

            “Paula?  I don’t remember a Paula.”

            “She just started a couple of months ago.  I complimented her on her haircut and she said that her oldest daughter is going through cosmetology school to become a hairdresser.  She said she’d give me a deal if I ever wanted a cut and color.”

            “Oh, Lord.  You could come home looking like Estelle Getty.”

            “Shut up,” I said.  “Her hair is really cute.”

            “Well, fine.  Sounds like a plan.”

            Suddenly, Henry got a strange look on his face and he looked like he was staring at me.  Until I got closer and realized that he was staring right next to me. 

            “What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked alarmed.  “I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

            Henry sat up a little straighter and continued to stare.  “Do you remember that picture you showed me once?  Of that aunt of yours who died when you were little?”

            “My dad’s sister?  Of course.  She died when I was eight.  I still miss her.  She was a real ball of fire.”

            “I can’t be…I mean I don’t know if this is possible….”

            “What?  What is it?”

            “She’s standing right behind you.”

            “What?” I said, whirling around.

            “She is.  She’s…really faint, but that’s her.  That’s the woman from the picture.  And I think….”

            “What?” I said, still desperately trying to find my aunt in what looked like thin air.

            “I think…she’s waving at me.”