“I don’t understand why you didn’t mention it sooner,” I say.
“Well.” Ana starts to grow uncomfortable. “I just . . . you are dealing with your own stuff and I didn’t think you wanted to hear about this,” she says, and that’s when it hits me. Ana pities me. Ana is now the one in love; Ana is the happy one; I am the sad one; the lonely one, the one to whom she doesn’t want to rub it in.
“What made this ‘click’ just happen?” I ask. My words are sharp; my voice is bitter.
“What?” she asks.
“It’s interesting that you just ‘changed’ like that. You go from being this . . . kind of . . . from someone who . . . ” I give up on trying to name it. “Well to turn around now and be the poster child for love. What made you change your mind?”
“You,” she says. She says it as if it will pacify me, as if I should be happy. “I just realized that life is about love. Or at least, it’s about loving someone.”
“Do you hear yourself? You sound like a Valentine’s Day card.”
“Whoa, okay,” she says as a reaction to the anger in my voice. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“Happy for you? My husband died and I’m sitting here miserable and alone, but you’ve learned from this whole experience how to love. Congratulations, Ana! We’re all really happy for you.”
She is stunned, and unfortunately, because it is a silent stunned, I am able to continue.
“Let’s all celebrate for Ana! She’s found true love! Her life wasn’t perfect enough with her perfect apartment and her perfect body and all of these men chasing her, but now, she’s evolved enough to see in my husband’s death a life lesson about the importance of love and romance.”
Ana is now almost in tears, and I don’t want her to cry but I can’t stop myself.
“Was it love at first sight? This romance of yours? Are you going to get married next week?”
By now, all I have as evidence of how much Ben loved me is how quickly he knew he wanted to marry me. I honestly think that if Ana says Kevin has already started talking about marriage I will lose the only piece of life I have left in me.
“No.” She shakes her head. “That’s not it.”
“Then what is it, Ana? Why are you doing this to me?”
“What am I doing to you?” she finally explodes. “I haven’t done anything to you. All I did was meet someone I like and try to share it with you. Just like you did months ago to me and I was happy for you!”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t widowed at the time.”
“You know what, Elsie? You don’t have to be a widow every second of every day of your life.”
“Yes, Ana, I do.”
“No, you don’t. And you think you can just tell me to fuck off because you think I don’t know anything, but I know you better than anyone. I know you sit here at home alone and think about what you’ve lost. I know it consumes you. I know that you keep his things around like they are a fucking medal for how tortured you are.”
“You know what—” I start, but she interrupts me.
“No, Elsie. I’ll tell you what. Everyone may tiptoe around you, myself included, but at some point someone needs to remind you that you lost something you only had for six months. Six months. And I’m not saying this isn’t hard, but it’s not like you’re ninety and you lost your life partner here. You need to start living your life and letting other people live theirs. I have the right to be happy. I didn’t lose that right just because your husband died.”
It’s quiet for a moment, as I look at her with my mouth wide open in shock.
“And neither did you,” she adds, and she walks out the door.
I stand there for a few minutes after she leaves, frozen. Then I reanimate. I walk into the back closet and find the pillow I stuffed in a trash bag right after he died, the pillow that smells like him. I just stand there, smelling it through the open hole at the top of the bag, until I can’t smell anything anymore.