I can see Lila through the glass before I open the door; she is standing on the front porch studying Dombek’s car in the driveway, probably wondering how much it’s worth, but by the time I turn the knob she is primed and ready: head cocked, lips trembling, brown eyes brimming over a hideous bouquet. At least she is not wearing black. “Mrs. D,” she sings, as she steps forward, “how are you?”
“Fine,” I sing in return, which is more or less true.
“Are you sleeping? Are you eating?”
“Yes yes; what lovely flowers, Lila, thank you.”
“I just thought you’d be sick of lilies….”
“I am. Absolutely. Sick to death of lilies. Come on in. Lunch is almost ready.”
“…and I remembered how much Dr. D liked sunflowers, so I thought: why not! something different! Oh, but have you really been okay? You look wonderful; I don’t know what I expected, but you look…”
“So do you, Lila.”
“I don’t know how I could, I’m so out of shape, Blake says I’m getting fat as a…” She enters, gives a reassuring glimpse at her pretty reflection in the hall mirror, then follows me through the house toward the kitchen. I can feel her eyes taking in the piano hulking by the shuttered window, Dombek’s empty chair, the stacks of unanswered sympathy cards on the dining room table. She stops to peer into one of the boxes of books and journals I’ve stacked against the wall. “His things,” she says heavily.
“Yes, well. Some of them. They’re all going to the dump. Unless you want something?”
“Oh gosh no. Blake doesn’t like to see me reading; he thinks I’m ignoring him.” She straightens and looks around. “I’ve always loved your house, all these paintings and antiques and things. Does it seem too big to you now?”
“No,” I say. “It seems too loud.” I have no intention of telling her there’s a new sound in the house, with Dombek gone, a low, vibrating noise like the thrum of machinery. I hear it every night as I lie awake; I hear it every time I put my book down or turn the radio or television off. I’ve asked my cleaning woman if she hears it too, but Yolanda shakes her head and pats my arm and the mailman, when he comes in to help me lift something heavy or change a fuse, says not to worry, it’s only the cosmos, the cosmos calling.
“Are you going to redecorate at least? I mean, I know this isn’t the same thing but when our dog died, the only thing that helped me get out of bed in the mornings was getting the couch reupholstered and buying a new rug, Roxie had worn a big hole, can you imagine, right through the old one. I know a great decorator if you’re thinking of making some changes, but I guess you probably don’t want to do anything big? At least not yet? Too soon?”
Is she real? Lila was Dombek’s worst graduate student, the one who sat in his office wringing her hands and sobbing about her crazy stepmother, her terrible love life, her jealous roommates, instead of working on her thesis–although when she did work, Dombek said, she wrote swiftly, accurately, mindlessly, and copiously. I never knew why he put up with her and yet here I am, years later, just as stuck. Luckily I am not as kind as Dombek, nor as vain, for he enjoyed teaching the unteachable, which I do not, and this will be a short visit.
“Blake has this ratty old green chair?” she chirps, following me into the kitchen, “and sometimes I just want to throw it the dumpster. Of course he’d kill me. Oh how pretty your kitchen looks.”
It does. Without the walker and the oxygen tank and the wheelchair it looks very pretty indeed. Sunlight pours in from the garden and I have set the little round table with the crystal we bought in Poland and the linens we bought in Provence. It could be a stage set: Lunch for Widows–only Lila’s not a widow, much as it seems she’d already like to be one. Why did Dombek and I think marriage would change her? Why did we think there’d be no more midnight phone calls and tearful visitations? I watch her plop down at the table and unconsciously start to caress a fork, her manicured fingers rubbing up and down the silver shaft as she stares out the window. Sex-starved? Heartbroken? The damaged daughter we never had? “What’s it like,” she asks, “just cooking for yourself every night?”
“The same. Dombek couldn’t eat anything but Ensure the last few months,” I remind her.
“You shouldn’t be cooking at all,” she says sternly. “You should be resting.” Then, “Blake’s just meat and potatoes, every night, meat and potatoes…you know what I do when he’s at one of his meetings? I have a bowl of cereal for dinner. Cereal and wine.”
“Speaking of wine…a little champagne?”
“Champagne? Today? Do you think that’s…” she allows herself a doubtful look, then, tentatively, chuckles. “Okay, champagne. If you are.”
“I am.” I fill our glasses, give a last toss to the salad, pull the rolls out of the oven, and ladle the vichyssoise into chilled bowls.
“Here’s to you,” Lila says, toasting. “To you and Dr D. Oh!” She sets her glass down and clasps her hands. “What are we going to do without him, you and I?” She eats steadily for a minute then leans forward, mouth full of salad, to ask, “Was it very awful?” I stare, not bothering to hide my annoyance. There must have been an article in PEOPLE recently about how important it is to encourage the bereaved to talk about all the gasping, groaning, gurgling, and gore. Lila waits, head tipped, politely puzzled: Portrait of a Listener. For a minute I’m tempted to tell her the truth but, “Not at all,” I lie, “it was very peaceful.” I watch her reach for a roll and then, I can’t resist it, add, “You know the worst thing?”
She looks up.
“I’ve lost my audience.”
I expect her to be shocked by this admission but Lila only nods. Of course. She knows that about Dombek, knows about his tolerance, his kindness, his gift for listening. Or does she? Because in the next second, “I can’t imagine having an audience. Blake never listens to me,” and for the rest of the lunch, it’s What Blake Doesn’t Do, which could be Lila’s way of consoling me for having had a better marriage than she has, which I did have, of course, but which it seems everyone else in the world has had too. Still, it gives me a perverse pleasure to see her cheeks pink up and her eyes brighten with complaint after complaint. She finishes everything on her plate and doesn’t stop talking until she sees me bring out the lemon cake. Then—god help us—the clasped hands again.
“A whole cake? For just the two of us?”
“No, I have a date tonight.”
“You…?”
“Just the lawyer. You know. Papers to sign.”
“Your lawyer comes at night?”
“He has been.”
Lila’s eyes widen, interested. No need to tell her Ellis is gay. Dombek got a kick out of Ellis and I loved hearing laughter, actual laughter, coming from his sickroom whenever he visited. I cut my visitor a large slice of cake and hold up the bottle. “More champagne?”
“Oh no. Oh well. Why not?”
After lunch we walk. I walk to the shops in town every day; it’s my only exercise and it keeps me sane. I walked before Dombek got sick, I walked after he got sick, I walk now, though I slow down to let Lila who, for some reason, wants to come with me, keep up. I am friends with all the shop owners and some of them, like Zoe in the bakery and Georgia in The Hummingbird, were godsends to us this last year. Phil from the wine shop drove Dombek to Emergency once and Renee from The Closet sat with him for an entire afternoon when I had to have a root canal and no one else was available.
Lila stops griping about Blake after we cross the park and enter the street of shops. I wait on the sidewalk while she cruises through Vignette, and when Renee waves from her doorway I steer Lila into The Closet where she disappears at once toward the sale racks. I skim the front tables; I haven’t worn anything but jeans and Dombek’s old sweaters for weeks, why should I, I’m not going anywhere; the idea of traveling alone is too new and the only people I see these days are good friends like the mailman, with his butterfly tattoos and ponytail, and Ellis, who will be better dressed than I no matter what I put on.
“Can you help me? I’ve dropped my cane and I’m afraid to pick it up.”
I turn to see a tiny woman looking up at me expectantly. She can’t be taller than four feet, wearing a red coat like a dwarf from a fairy tale. She is too well-groomed to be homeless—could she have wandered out of a nearby asylum or board and care center?
“I have no balance at all,” she confides. “If I bend over, I fall.” Her voice is clear, accentless, perplexed. She continues talking as I bend down to get her cane and hand it back to her. “I don’t break anything when I fall. But I’m worried. What if I fall down someday and can’t get up? What if I have to stay down forever?”
“Do you have a phone?”
She reaches in her pocket and pulls out the latest model.
“So you could call someone?”
“Who would I call?”
“A son? A daughter?”
She continues to look up at me, patient, waiting, silent.
“A friend? The fire department?”
“Also,” she confides, “I have sciatica.”
“Sciatica hurts,” I agree. “Here’s what I do when my back hurts,” and the next thing I know I am lying on Renee’s floor hugging my knees and rocking back and forth while the old woman looks down approvingly. She is wearing little black boots with red laces. Gingerly she sets down her cane and eases herself onto the floor and starts rocking beside me. Her mild eyes never leave my face and her smile is sweetly trusting. “Now try lifting one leg at a time,” I say. “Point your toe, then lower your leg. Slowly. Slowly.”
“It helps,” the old woman agrees, pleased.
“And do you know the Cat and the Cow? Arch then flatten?”
“Arch then flatten! Arch then flatten!”
“Hey?” Renee asks, standing over us, her arms full of sale dresses.
“My gosh,” Lila says, beside her.
“This is wonderful,” the old woman laughs. “I feel so much better.”
“I do too,” I say as I help her up. It’s all I can do not to hug her.
Lila is quiet on the way home, swinging her bag with her new sweater in it. “That was odd,” she says finally.
“It was,” I agree. “Dombek would have loved it.”
We stop to say goodbye in front of the house. I follow her gaze to Dombek’s beloved Citroen, sitting half-covered with leaves in the driveway. It still runs and though I don’t drive it, I sometimes like to sit in the passenger seat reading and sucking one of the stale cough drops Dombek kept in the glove compartment.
“Blake, “she begins, “collects classic….”
“I’m thinking of giving it to the mailman,” I interrupt.
“The ma…oh! You’re teasing me. But if you’re really getting rid of it, I hope Dr. D fixed the clutch.”
“The clutch?”
“It was driving him crazy.”
“You’ve been in his car?”
“Oh sure. He used to drive me home. After coffee.” She gives me a quick hard hug, reminds me that time heals everything, hopes I’ll feel better soon, and thanks me for a lovely afternoon. I watch her leave, a bounce in her step. She did her duty, cheered a lonely old lady up. Hopefully she will go home and be nice to that poor schmuck she married. I go back into the house, take the bouquet of sunflowers out of the sink where I dropped them, and carry them, dripping, outside. They are stiff and hairy with big drooping half dead heads and if they were ever Dombek’s “favorite” flower I sure never heard about it. But apparently there’s a lot I never heard about. Drove her home after coffee? What the fuck? Dombek didn’t even drink coffee. I toss the bouquet into the compost bin and slam the lid down. Then, remembering all I still have to do today, I pull my phone out of my pocket and type in three messages: the first to Renee to thank her for giving Lila a discount on the sweater, the second to Ellis: See you at seven, and the third…the third…I stand in the garden a long time with the phone in my hand. I know who the third is to; it’s to Dombek. I want to give him credit for still being able to surprise me after all this time, and I want to tell him I hope he regrets wasting so much of our precious lives doting on a dull girl, and I want to tell him that I’m mad as hell, and then I want to tell him about the mailman’s new tattoo and the little woman in the red coat and the lemon cake and my sciatica and this horrible hum in the air all around me. I want to tell him everything. And I can’t.
Molly Giles has published five award-winning story collections, two novels, and, most recently, a memoir (Life Span).