Personals

“Being alone is lousy,” Hank complained to his married daughter.

He had been devoted to his wife for fifty-three years, nursed her through five years of an awful illness, and sat by her bed during the last weeks while she stared at the ceiling, refusing food or medication, ready to go. While she drifted in and out of consciousness he said goodbye to her over and over to himself, seeing not an illness-ravaged old woman but the beautiful young girl he had married. Now she was gone, and before the van from the mortuary had turned the corner of their block, Hank started clearing out the drawers and closets of Ellie’s things.

Making and keeping appointments, he got through the paperwork of death in under a week. No longer having any reason to rush back to the apartment, he wheeled the shopping cart around the supermarket in a Muzak-induced daze. Trying to “get back to normal,” Hank ate low-cholesterol meals in front of the television, forced himself to walk briskly for twenty minutes or so at a time, and to “get out,” to his daughter’s house for dinner several times a week. Most days the Southern California summer heat forced him to stay in, the air conditioner grinding a steady backbeat to his increasingly aggravated thoughts.

He actually felt more annoyed than grief-stricken. Having already mourned his loss, day after day, all those years, helping Ellie up and down stairs, in and out of the car, to all those doctor’s appointments. And all the “accidents,” when her...