#64 PARKER’S WIFE

I did not kill my wife but as her coffin was being lowered into the ground, I thought maybe I had contributed to it by wishing her dead on more than one occasion. I’m not proud of this nor would I admit to it. She had a heart problem and would not heed the doctor’s warning, intent, as always on her own way. “What does he know?” she’d scoff, “He barely fits through the door of his office.” That was Janice; all advice was taken as a personal rebuke, even from a consciences doctor who was trying to keep her healthy. No matter that it wasn’t a competition, Janice looked at the world and all relations as a battle for predominance. She never really grew out of her teenage angst and at sixty-five it had become not only unnecessary, but irrational.

So no, I didn’t kill her but throughout the funeral, the burial and the gathering at my house afterward, my mind wandered to the last two years, since my retirement, when our marriage became a daily battle of wills, living together a torturous passage through a quarrelsome journey that in the end, led nowhere.

I had been looking forward to retirement, I was close to seventy and becoming obsolete in my own field. I founded and was part owner of a financial services business that had done very well over the years. I could have retired a decade earlier but felt young enough to continue indefinitely. My wife, Janice, retired from the city five years earlier with a healthy pension and the desire to stay at home after many years in the workplace. She thought she might like to take up hobbies, lunch with her friends who did not work and maybe redecorate our home that she said was in need of rejuvenation. I was happy for her and prepared to encourage her in her pursuits, whatever they might be.

I began this story with an admission that if said aloud could put me in some danger but I would never speak of anything so brash to another living person and these pages I write will never see the light of day. I will continue to play the grieving husband, suffering a loss, a widower, dignified, but I have little interest in carrying this too far. You’ll soon learn why.

For the world, Janice and I looked like one of those active retired couples who take cruises, sign up for French cooking classes, visit the Cayman Islands or buy a second home in the south of France or Belize. Well-to-do, ready to conquer new worlds, albeit, as long as it was enjoyable and kept us young. That is what I myself pictured when I contemplated retirement when the office was no longer my daily routine but I was ignoring the signals, the premonitions, the outright evidence that all was not well in our home or in our life together.

Over the long years of our marriage, forty years, Janice and I had, like many other couples, grown apart, physically and if I may say it, spiritually. I had, while in my fifties, an infatuation with another woman, Mary, and wanted to divorce and start anew. I was closer to Mary than I had ever been to my wife and hoped to grow old with her. I kept looking for an opening; I thought Janice too might like a new start; I based this on hints she would suddenly drop--odd remarks she would never fully explain. Our daughter, Amy, was still at home and our son, Paul, in college, at home during breaks and holidays. I felt they were mature enough to accept the split. While looking for an escape route for myself, our daughter, on the night of her junior prom, was killed in a car accident coming home from the dance with a driver who was not only drunk, but had only received his driver’s license the week before. It was his first time out with his father’s sports car, lent in good faith for the evening to be returned by one a.m. Needless to say, the car was not returned, both children instantly killed when an oncoming delivery truck could not veer out of the way fast enough of the reckless, inebriated teenage driver.

I give it to you bluntly. Forgive me. It may be relevant to the story but is not actually the story I am telling. I am unable to write this last paragraph without sliding into emotional torment, still so long after that night when I had to identify my beautiful daughter’s broken body, pieces of the pink dress she made herself pasted to her skin with blood. Janice, whom I expected would lapse into a frenzy of grief and rage, seemed to handle it better than I. Immobile and hollow, I wanted to hide myself and my anguish while she seemed to grow in strength. I don’t mean to imply that she was in any way unaffected; she was put on tranquilizers, started evening cocktails earlier than before and cried openly for a year after, unable to work. But she acquired a force of personality I had never noticed in her. I took a month off from business concerns and sat in my armchair brooding. I began to admire my wife's courage as she joined support groups, saw a therapist and participated in an online discussion group writing poignantly about the death of a child.

At the funeral, horrific in its tenor, she was reunited with an old boyfriend, Jim, from her hometown who had lost a son in a car accident involving drug use. They wrote daily to each other, I’d often hear her whispering to him on the phone into the night and I believe she once took a out-of-town trip to be with him. I did not interfere with what was becoming her one-man support group. She did not make an attempt to hide the nature of the relationship as it grew more intimate and time-consuming. He would come into the city and take her to dinner frequently. I said nothing.

I meanwhile, lost my Mary. She gracefully bowed out. This is how she put it: “I love you with all my heart and soul, Parker, but this is not the time to stir up more pain. I think you need to be there for your wife and son now and not thinking about me. I have to get on with my life somehow, this situation isn’t good for me. God bless you, dear, you have meant the world to me.” With tears and kisses, she vanished and I have lost all contact with her though I could find her if I wished to.

I am reminiscing about a painful time in my life but I really want to talk about the last two years. I don’t have the luxury of a therapist, I won't confess my feelings, I don’t wish to. I have always been a man to keep his thoughts to himself, I was raised that way as was most of my generation. I marvel at men on the television, celebrities mostly, confessing their innermost demons, admitting to various transgressions, assured they will be forgiven and still loved. I do not have such assurance. I suspect I would be scorned and denied forgiveness if I should break down and reveal my trespasses.

When I retired, two years ago, Janice as I said, had been at home for more than five years, queen of the castle, sovereign of the sofa. All of her planned activities did not amount to much. After the first rush of renewed friendship with her girlfriends, she gradually moved away from them but kept one close by for gossip and company. This was the one friend whose situation was shaky and Janice could feel superior to. Marge never had the life the rest of the group had with two failed marriages, one troublesome boy and never enough money. Janice always said, “I can’t give up on Marge, she’s such a poor thing. Those terrible husbands and a worthless son she still dotes on. I have to be on hand for guidance, don’t I? She has no one else.” They talked on the phone several times a day. They thrived on gossip and sarcasm. Janice seemed to change from the crisp businesswoman she’d been to someone rather thoughtless. Her tongue was growing sharp.

My business became one of tolerance. Well, I’d like to say I was tolerant but I became less so with time. Once I was home all day with Janice, things began to crumble. At first I thought we would reinvigorate our marriage, be that couple I earlier described. I wanted to take her to Europe at the very least. Instead, Janice was irritable and cranky with my presence and mostly tried to ignore me. She’d say, “Don’t you have somewhere you can go, Park? It unnerves me to have you underfoot all day. I’m used to my own space. I have my routine. Can’t you visit someone or walk in the park?” This started after the first three months of my retirement--the snide harping, the fervent desire to have me out of her way. I was peeved at first. This isn’t exactly what I planned for my retirement; enforced wandering, unenthusiastic visits to museums or libraries, sitting alone in a coffee shop reading the papers. I am a domestic man; I love my own home, my desk, sitting in my armchair by the west window in the afternoon sun, surrounded by my own things. It not only hurt my feelings to be pushed aside, but rankled more as time went by.

Since I’d disrupted my wife’s routine--I came to realize that most of her time was spent on the sofa, reading romance novels, watching soap operas and eating candy by the bagfuls--Janice decided it was time to begin the redecorating. Up to this point, she’d been lax in that area, unable to decide on color schemes, draperies, carpets. Now she began the entire process in one manic go. I tried to be a part of it, had an interest in the minutia of interior decoration and a few ideas of how I envisioned our home.

Apparently a husband and wife cannot do this sort of thing together, one has to give in. That would be me; Janice does not capitulate. This area of incompatibility she discovered online and would frantically post her annoyance trying to deal with the “husband” when everyone knows it is a woman’s territory. She would print out other posts attesting to this. I could do nothing but distance myself and leave her to it.

She ended up choosing everything, turning me away and including Marge in her excursions to the department stores, the furniture showrooms and the kitchen/bathroom mega stores. My opinion, my taste was entirely disregarded and I should have made my thoughts known on some of her choices but I knew I couldn’t override her. By not taking a stand, and at considerable expense to me, I ended up with a living room that looked like a boudoir for a nineteenth-century coquette, colors so unsettling, so unnatural, I winced when I walked into the rooms. The bedroom, previously so soothing, if shabby, now reeked of gay pride, as if Elton John was hired for the decorating. It was not a place a man could feel comfortable. I mean no offense to Mr. John. I simply use him as an example of over-the-top style, not quite right for a conservative man in his seventies coming from a different perspective.

Fortunately, my study remained off-limits, Janice never set foot in there if she could help it. “Much too dreary,” she’d say. I’d shrug, look around our living room and wonder when her taste had deteriorated so. I’d never noticed before but began to pay attention to her clothing, her television shows, the books she read, her hair color, her jewelry, her shoes, everything, as if I had woken up with a wife I no longer recognized. I would never have looked down on my wife’s taste if she hadn’t so thoroughly rammed it down my throat with our spectacularly awful rooms. Gaudy wallpaper, awkwardly plush, overtly feminine furniture, nervous rugs and unnecessary knickknacks, accessories they’re called now, that collected dust and took up space. There was little harmony and less utility. A large TV dominated the east end always on, adding to the jumbled feel.

But our troubles really took root in the kitchen: Our new kitchen was well-equipped, clean, with modern efficient appliances. The color scheme, well, I’ll let that go. It was the least of my problems until I ended up taking that French cooking class without Janice, she wouldn’t budge, and realized I should have chosen the counter tops and layout since I would be doing the cooking. Janice, formerly allergic to anything related to the kitchen was now underfoot every time I attempted my culinary experiments. She would insinuate herself in front of the stove or the refrigerator intent on blocking my path, slam cupboard doors, lower the heat on my sauces or turn them off completely, open and shut drawers or decide to rearrange a shelf, none of which she bothered with when I wasn’t at home or in my study. She could not give way even in an area she had no use for. I would be chopping garlic or onions, notice her fooling around with my burners, my timer or my recipe file and with a knife in hand, thought I might like to stab her on more than one occasion. Instead I would fill my wineglass and count to ten.

There, I said it. I wanted to kill her. Okay, so maybe it’s just a bad humor but no, I can truthfully say, I felt the urge. And that was just the beginning. I won’t let myself off.

If I were having morning coffee in the dining room, reading the newspaper, that is when she started the vacuum, an instrument formerly untouched by her hands. When we both worked we had a maid who did the cleaning and most of the cooking. After Janice retired, we kept her on part-time. Janice said she would take over the cooking, part of her campaign for a new kitchen. This worked out exactly as I expected: Dinner was never served, we either went out or she would phone me and say she didn’t want dinner and I was on my own. When I’d come home, she’d be watching television and her dinner had been something she micro-waved or sweets, sometimes fruit. Her eating habits became a loosely applied grazing method with no set beginning or end. When questioned, with something innocuous like, “Did you have your dinner, Jan?“ she would listlessly say, “Yeah, here and there. I eat when I’m hungry,” and would resume watching her television program.

In most everything during this time, her motivation would be to distance herself from me. That is unless I was doing something, then her desire was to disrupt it. She developed a willfulness, a need to assert herself whenever I could be found doing anything of a personal nature such as trying out a new recipe, listening to classical music on the radio, reading a book or looking over my coin collection. Anything that brought me any relaxation at all, she interrupted with a sudden wish to talk about bills, the yard work, plans for the weekend, our son’s life, or any piece of trivia she could manufacture to stop me from doing anything that looked like it might give me some small pleasure. When I was paying bills, doing yard work, or talking to our son, she was nowhere to be found. Or should I say, she was on the sofa or talking to Marge--careening with laughter amid whispers.

She was not subtle in any of this. Other forms of aggression perpetuated by her began to rile me. She would purposely bang into me entering a room. We have a very large house, plenty of space so it made no sense logistically. I say bang into me because there was a tinge of violence to it, as if she really wanted to slap me aside but couldn’t quite justify that so this violation of my personal space was the closest thing. She seemed to resent that I had any at all. It was confusing to me; our relationship had always been one of personal respect and at the very least, polite refrain from petty annoyance and disturbances. We’d always got on well. Now Janice had an ax to grind but when I would say something like, “Are you upset about anything?” her reply would be “Of course not, what do I have to be upset about?” Evasive and yet a belligerence that unnerved me. After about the third or forth time this happened I was caught off-guard one afternoon and instinctively pushed back at her. I shocked myself by the violence I felt in that moment. The look on her face I could only describe as one of satisfaction, gloating. She’d gotten to me and it was a victory for her. I vowed never to fall into that trap again but I was rattled and off-kilter. A part of me despised her and it took two hours in the garage to get it out of my system. Her mood, however, was considerably uplifted and she wanted to go out to dinner in the restaurant we frequent for celebrations. I refused, feeling manipulated. We ended up going to a hamburger joint, not a word spoken before, during or after.

In late May we were both were scheduled for our annual checkup and proceeded to the medical center on a fine morning with tentative plans for a picnic if the weather held. We were both fortunate to have robust health, were young for our respective ages and without trepidation we marched into our doctor’s office. I received the usual recommendations; more exercise, watch those high calorie French dishes, take vitamins, make sure to have my blood pressure checked regularly as it was a little high, nothing too serious, limit alcohol intake but enjoy a fine wine. This Doctor Hoffman said in good humor as we patronize the same wine seller and attend the monthly tastings.

As for Janice, her blood pressure was up more than a little and the doctor wanted to put her on heart medication, a restricted diet and a sound exercise program. He warned her that she would have to make some changes starting with diet and exercise. He said she would have to be monitored weekly and if things did not turn around with these modifications, she was a likely candidate for a heart operation. He recommended a cardiologist and offered to set up the appointment. He lectured her on the seriousness of her condition and sent her home with a list of foods to steer clear of and the name of a personal trainer who would help her with a light exercise routine. In addition, he said she needed to limit sweets. He was worried about the possible onset of Type II Diabetes. He made a point of telling her this in my presence which goaded her and she was in a snit all the way home, slammed the car door roughly, fuming under her breathe.

Once in the kitchen, hoping to quell her anger I said, “Well dear, we will have to look out for you better, we’ll have to eat lighter, on a regular schedule and you’ll want to remove the candy dish from the living room.” My desire to help her was genuine. I then made the mistake of saying, “We’re not as young as we once were, you know. This is to be expected. We’ll be fine, no doubt and a little exercise will be good for you, get you out of the house, moving around. I’ll go too.” I may as well have hit her so volatile was her reaction.

“Speak for yourself, old man. I’m considerably younger and if you think I’m going to live like an old relic along with you, you’ve got another thing coming. You watch your eating habits and I’ll watch mine, thank you very much. And as for that gym, I'll pass. I don‘t need to lose weight, my figure is the same as it was when I was in college. Doctor Hoffman is the one to lose weight, his gut isn’t hidden by that white tent he wears. A lot he knows about it.” She threw her coat down, tossed the papers aside and returned to the sofa where she remained for the rest of the day, not eating, but watching warily for any sign of cooking from the kitchen. I made us a light dinner of soup, sandwiches and a fruit salad and she ate perfunctorily and without enthusiasm. Later I saw her dipping into a box of chocolates with a defiant expression on her face, sardonically choosing between a caramel, a coconut cream or a chocolate truffle. She made a point of daintily putting one into her mouth as she waited for me to say something. I didn’t dare and went to the kitchen to plan menus for the week. I would go to the bookstore in the morning and buy the “heart smart” cookbook recommended by Doctor Hoffman. “She is afraid, that’s all,” I said to our son on the telephone. "She can be stubborn," he added. "But I don't suppose she wants to play fast and loose with her health."

Janice lasted at the gym for a week and then complained of headaches from pinched nerves. She ate what I put in front of her but scoffed if something was “too healthy.” She said it was fad food and I was a dupe. When we went out to dinner, she insisted on ordering her favorites and said she would tow the line at home but could not be expected to diet in a restaurant. She said if she can’t order dessert she would rather not come out at all. I continued to prepare healthy meals and found a great deal of satisfaction learning how to cook and eat without all the fats and sugars. I began inventing recipes and was even asked to teach a class in healthy cooking. I wasn’t that interested in doing this but figured it was a way to get out of the house, something Janice still requested. She had nothing good to say about my menus and continued to sneak candy, hidden under the sofa.

One day I came home and found all of my clothes in garbage bags in the foyer. I had an moment of absolute panic followed by a dangerous urge to strangle her. I calmed myself before looking for her, knowing things could get out of hand pretty fast if I gave in to the rage I was feeling. “Janice, where are you?” No answer. I called again. “Janice, where the hell are you?” I heard her voice answer from the kitchen, a feeble, slightly sickish tone say, “I’m in here, stop yelling.” She was drinking coffee, laden with cream and skimming through a magazine.

“What the hell are my clothes doing in bags?” I was trying desperately to stay calm but could feel my head about to implode, my nerves were jangling.

“I’m giving them away. You don’t need so many clothes, you never wear them anymore, I’m emptying out the closet, I can’t find anything with all of your stuff crowding things. Besides, it’s for a good cause that resale shop, whatever it is…you know the one next to the wine shop.”

I had just come from a sober meeting with my business partner and my mood was aggravated by recent events in the financial world. My fingers were tingling and flapping around, my breathe was shallow. I hoped with all my heart I would be able to maneuver through what was about to take place without losing my dignity or my sanity. I thoroughly wanted to thrash her.

“You have no right to do anything with my clothes, they are my clothes, not yours, it is not for you to decide if, what, when or to whom I will give them. What gives you the right?” I was hissing, not yelling but it was only by an acute attempt at self-control; I wanted to howl.

“Oh, get over it, why do you need to take over the entire closet? Your clothes are boring anyway. Old man clothes. Get some new things so you don’t look so out of it. I told you I wanted bigger closets in the bedroom that we should move into your precious study but you balked. Now live with it.” Her arrogance and disregard rocked my nervous sensibilities but looking back, they shouldn’t have.

I poured myself a glass of scotch, paced a bit and went back to the kitchen where she was still turning pages with an air of composure but if you had looked closer, you would have noticed an increased sense of well-being. She was smirking, I caught it before she knew I was back in the room and that smirk broke something in me. Instead of knocking her off the stool she was perched on--admittedly an alarming retaliation--I calmed myself and said, “Janice, would you like me to just move out altogether?”

She gave me a steely glance then a sneer. “Fat chance,” she said.

“No really, would you? Just tell me what it is you want. Why don’t you be honest for a change. Let it out.”

“Okay, you asked for it: It’s true I would love to have you out of my hair, I’ll be honest. You bug me. I can’t stand your concern, your goody-two-shoes attitude about everything.” Her voice was getting shrill. “I hate your funeral music on the radio, fucking Brahms, who gives a shit?--centuries-old irrelevant depressing crap--your crummy tasteless meals, your Wall Street Journals, your pressed shirts and creased pants, your boring C-Span, your carefully chosen bottles of wine. I hate you hanging around all day watching me, spying on me. I hate you...how about that?” she sputtered. She was at high pitch, threw the magazine in the trash and slammed her cup in the sink. She began to pace looking for the most hateful things she could lob at me. She was breathing hard, her face was red and I momentarily wondered about her heart. I was speechless and let her go on.

“You know what else? I purposely decorated these rooms to irritate you. Yes, I spent all that money, all that time thinking about what Parker would detest the most--what would really get his goat. You want to know something else? I put butter in the Smart Balance tub, put sugar in the Splenda box, I add salt to everything in the goddamn cupboards and refrigerator. And I told the receptionist at the gym that you are a voyeur, to watch you, how about that, Mr. Refinement? I have done everything I can think of to thwart you. I discarded mail I knew you were waiting for, oh yeah, threw away bills, didn’t give you phone messages, left your newspapers out in the rain. Oh boy, Park, I have had quite a time thinking up ways to mess with you. But you know what? You were either too dumb to notice or too polite to accuse me. All my effort and you didn’t react. It was a hollow victory if you didn’t react. So afraid of the ungentlemanly word, so afraid of hurting my feelings. That time you pushed me in self-defense almost sent you to a therapist, so guilty. And so remorseful because you questioned my taste, or should I say, my lack of taste. I admit it, Park, I have no taste. I like infantile music, trashy books, stupid movies, I watch junk TV. I’d rather drink Mountain Dew than any of your uppity stupid-ass Napa wines. I like microwave dinners. I don’t care about unbiased reporting. I like sordid politicians and root for them. I like my leaders to have illicit affairs and out-of-wedlock kids. I like tabloid papers. I loathe virtuous people, I long for their fall. And you know what else, Park? I don’t care about art, the environment, recycling, or reusing plastic bags. I don’t like neutral tasteful clothing or décor. I like artificial flowers better than real because they last and don’t drop petals. I dislike anything natural including your Whole Foods wholesome flipping virtuous products. Leave me with my candy and trash-talking TV!”

She was pitching the hate hard and fast, I could only listen in amazement. What brought this about? What clues did I miss? They must have been enormous.

“But I got to you today, didn’t I? All those expensive, tasteful clothes look pretty sad lying in trash bags on the floor. I knew that would get to you. That you wouldn’t be able to overlook such a violation against your personal self, your dignified self!” She was spewing and rubbed her mouth with her hand. She paced the length of the kitchen and kicked over the waste basket and the garbage flew over the newly installed gleaming tiles, an approximate statement of her bilious frame of mind.

“You still haven’t answered my question: Do you want me to move out? Obviously you do not like anything about me, you have made it impossible for me to like you, so what do you want?”

“I want to be left alone. I want not to have to look at you or talk to you. I want you to disappear. If you died tomorrow I would be unable to shed a tear. We should have divorced years ago, we would have if…I wanted someone else,” she said in a hushed voice. Then the tears flowed freely.

“Well now, you got it all out. No more passive-aggressive scheming. You should feel better. There’s just one little problem but not an insurmountable one: With the stock market crash, we are a little less inured to the forces of the economy. I haven’t said anything, but our portfolio has taken quite a hit and I know you can’t be bothered with the Wall Street Journal, or even the news unless it involves a celebrity, but housing prices are dropping significantly so we won’t be likely to sell for a decent price in the near future which we would have to do if I were to move. You see, dear, we cannot afford two homes right at this time. Your own position is shaky, your 401k is not quite where it was. You’ve lost considerably, I’m afraid to say. I’m also sorry we spent so much money on redecorating; especially if a new buyer is likely to flinch when walking through the front door. So you see, we are in a pickle. As far as giving my clothes away, I think I may need them for a few more years. I may have to go back to work. I certainly can’t afford new ones right at the moment, no matter how ancient they may be.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the financial business? Couldn’t you have prevented us being in the same boat with a bunch of other losers? Wasn’t that your job? To protect our investments? To make us rich for our old age? Come on, Mr. Prudent, what were you doing when the bubble was about to burst? She was heaving with animosity. Her words were coming in short bursts of crackling contempt though the pitch was lower.

“Yes, well, I didn’t see it coming, I admit. Many others also did not.” I was admitting this in a placid voice but I was embarrassed and frankly, losing momentum. When someone you have lived with for so many years lets you have it, in total honesty, your reactions are ranging over a vast uprooted territory. You don’t quite know which blow to address first. I had been troubled about our finances but did not want to worry Janice. I thought things might look up before long and she never seemed to have a glimmer of apprehension from television. I suppose she expected me to keep her abreast and she was right. Guilty, as charged.

“So, you spent your time worrying about our stupid meals, our pathetic blood pressure while Rome was burning? Thanks a lot, Parker. I’m sure Paul thanks you too.”

“Leave him out of this. He’s okay for the time being. What do you want to do? We don’t have the options we once had but we still need to think about it.”

“Forget about it. I don’t want to think about it right now. Leave me alone. I don’t care what you do. You’d better take the clothes to the guestroom and settle in for now.” She had released her pent-up fury and walked into the living room, turned on the TV and picked at her box of chocolates not bothering to hide them this time, as impenetrable as the flickering screen.

I swept up the garbage and poured another scotch, went to my study and sat looking out the window. Eventually I hauled myself to the cold guestroom and laid down on an uncomfortable just-for-show quilt and slept. In the morning we barely spoke and she went out with Marge for the afternoon. We lived in our house for several months, distant, at times awkward at others, antagonistic, then I put it on the market, planning to either buy a condo for each of us if it sold or rent an apartment for myself if it didn’t. Either way, our marriage was over.

We just started showing the house, got a few low-ball offers and together began to make financial plans for our separate futures when Janice’s heart gave out. She had not been seen by her cardiologist for two months but took the pills, still refusing any change of habit. She thought the pills replaced diet and exercise and I was too tired to argue with her. She and Marge ate lavish meals in restaurants, she made a point of telling me about them. She blithely went her own way and I mine. We had called a truce, waiting for the house to sell. Our animosity abated although she never sought my presence and truthfully, I didn’t want her company at all. I was looking forward to moving. She fainted in a department store Christmas shopping and was brought to the hospital in an ambulance where she died that afternoon of heart failure.

The burial took place in on a windy day in early December. Our friends and family were effusive in their expressions of sympathy, offering comfort. I appreciated the gestures but did not need sympathy per se. At one time I loved my wife, our early years were filled with laughter and unity. I never knew what caused Janice’s anger toward me; once she had her say, she clammed up and refused any of my attempts at further communication. I left her alone but spent a lot of time reliving our years together with our children. Amy--my pride and joy. Janice and I never talked about her. I often wanted to. I missed my daughter and talking about her would have helped. Whenever I brought up anything about her, how she loved banana popsicles, Black Jack gum and the color yellow or her plans to be a fashion designer, Janice willfully withdrew. Talking about Amy, just saying her name now and again, kept her alive, something I very much needed.

Janice and I dealt with her death in a contrasting way. We were, it seems, opposing inhabitants of the same marriage. This makes me sad as I bury her. I chastise myself for not realizing sooner that she was so unhappy. That she hated me more for what I was not than what I was; the man she really cared for. I won’t be able to forget the past two years, I’ll live with the memory of our wrath and never really understand it. May she rest in peace.

My son was with me for several days, the only solace I needed. We were in the garage tuning up his mother’s car that is now his. “You and Mom had a happy life, I think. Both of you so vibrant. You might be lonely, Dad.”

“I’ll be fine, Son. Don’t worry about me.” I will never be able to tell anyone just exactly what was under the hood of our marriage. This story has been difficult to write and I suspect not exactly joyous to read. Forgive me. I’m getting old, I’m disappointed and do not have the wherewithal to pretend otherwise.