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The
man she loved and had spent her life with was dead. All the ways she had ever
thought she might feel in this situation eluded her as she rose. Hattie
continued to study Ben's features which seemed to change again and again in the
shifting light. She knew suddenly one important thing about her life with Ben.
She had lived beside him through the glorious and quotidian days of a long
marriage, and yet they each had their individual loneliness. Hattie's body
trembled again at the terrible knowledge that she had never really known Ben at
all.
When
she climbed the stairs again, Hattie felt a weariness so intense that she could
hardly lift her feet to clear the treads. At least, she thought, she could rest.
But during the night, her first night of widowhood, sleep moved away from her
like an elusive lover. Each time she felt herself moving toward it, she'd be
pulled back, imagining she heard thick, phlegmy breathing on the pillow next to
her. As she tossed and jerked the covers this way and that trying to find a cool
space to rest, she struggled to make sense of her own emotions which didn't feel
like the grief she felt entitled to. If she had to name her state, she would
think, confusion. As though too much was happening at once, too many images
crowding in around her, too much for her to process especially with the house
full of people all afternoon and evening. She simply couldn't think.
Occasionally, she'd imagine herself placing the ring, touching Ben's dead flesh,
how strange he looked and felt; then the thought would frighten her and quickly
disappear to surface again in images of Ben holding baby Alice on his lap.
Since
Alice had moved to Pittsburgh two years before and with Ben on the road,
Hattie's life had been solitary and private except for the good friends and
neighbors. The day had been too much for her and the viewing and funeral the
next day would be even more taxing. She knew she needed sleep, yet how was she
to turn off her mind enough to rest. How was she to endure it? When she thought
of the numbers of women she knew who had been widowed, she was astonished that
they were able to survive the rituals of bereavement.
And
Ben. How could she even make herself begin to realize that the central person in
her life was gone? Ben. How could she cope with everyone talking to her, trying
to comfort her but saying things she didn't want to hear, making her remember
this or that good time they had with her and Ben? But what about the other times
they had shared, the not so perfect times. Did anyone else remember them? She
felt her mind refuse those images.
Still,
another thought pulled at the edge of her consciousness, one that she couldn't
quite bring into focus. She dozed fitfully until two, then fell into a deep
sleep for three hours. She woke up with a start, knowing with certainty what the
elusive thing which had been bothering her, was: she still didn't know what Ben
had started to tell her. What had he been thinking of in the moments before he
died?
She
must have slept again for when she woke next, the room was stuffy, much too warm
for early May and gray with predawn light. She lay there, willing herself to get
up; even imagining herself seated on the edge of the bed ready to stand. The
house was completely still; Alice slept down the hall in her childhood bedroom.
No traffic passed on the road since the milk truck's four a.m. run. She squinted
at the clock: 5:15. She must have dozed again.
When
she heard the hall floorboards sigh, a small kernel of happiness bloomed in
Hattie's heart. It was a night long ago, before Ben had begun to travel, before
Alice and she had begun to misunderstand each other. The covers moved and her
daughter's small, sleep-warmed body slid in next to her. For a moment, milky
sweet baby breath feathered Hattie's cheek, then the child turned and nestled
close, her back curled into Hattie's chest. Greedily, Hattie inhaled Alice's
scents and drew a few strands of her daughter's downy blond hair into her mouth.
Only partially awake, Hattie adjusted her body around her daughter and Ben moved
slightly to make room in the cave of his arms for his wife and child.
Copyright Karen Blomain, 2001. All rights reserved. Reproduced by the permission of the publisher, Toby Press.
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