She left you too.
Yes, thank God. But not before extracting several hundred dollars from me. But I was glad to get rid of her. I would have paid much more than that to see her go. Anyways, these are all the wrong places to find a woman. You want a drunk? Go looking for her in the bar. You want a gambling addict? You’ll find her at the horse track. You want a freak? You’ll meet one at the gun club. But if you want a wife, well maybe the place to look is at church.
Then you just end up with a religious freak.
Not necessarily, Art. Not necessarily. That’s why you’re so damned lucky.
Me? I don’t go to church.
You have your wife, Adeleine, and your beautiful daughter. I don’t know how you do it, big guy, but I admire your abilities. You’re a lucky son of a bitch, to have found decent female company. And God, on top of that, if your wife ever left you, I’m sure you’d be able to find another one just like that. Women just seem to like you.
Thanks.
You’re lucky, Art. You are.
You’re telling me?
How are you and Adeleine doing anyways?
Me and Adeleine? We have our problems. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all roses. And Meg’s a handful. At least for her dad…
But it’s something, Art, right? At least you have people to go home to at the end of the day. You have people to think about. That’s a good thing.
Yes, I suppose it is.
I’m happy for you, Art. I really am.
Cheers. To you.
No, to you, Art. You’re my inspiration. God bless.
When I returned to the office I dropped my new gun and the rounds of ammo on the shelf next to the champagne glasses. Where else was I going to put it? In the safe? Maybe the safe was the right answer, but I was too tired or lazy to fuck with the combo. And maybe Cal was right, maybe you needed to be able to get to a gun quickly or it was no good.
After that I went home to bed and just forgot about it.
¤
I stand over my wife’s grave and I can’t believe she’s dead.
She has been dead five years, and after five years the difficulty of believing she is dead has not gone away.
People always telling me to forget it. Get it behind you. What’s done is done. The past is dead. Move forward. But I always say, it’s so easy telling somebody to forget. Telling someone is easy as pie. All you have to do is say it, and you move on unscathed. But for me, I wasn’t unscathed by the incident. It really broke me. I mean snapped me in two. Broken. Broken. Busted. Just cracked in half. Unfixable. I didn’t think at first I would be so broken by this. But time doesn’t seem to have made it any easier. I kept figuring time was going to be my friend on this, but time has failed me. Let time heal you, as they say. But time hasn’t healed a thing. Only made things worse. None of my wounds are healed. If anything, it’s only gotten more painful with time.
I have a hard time sleeping. I can’t concentrate. If I lacked motivation to get out of bed before she was killed, it’s been impossible now. It’s the reason why I always show up late to work. I show up and there’s Wanda looking all bright and fresh as springtime flowers and I’m always half dead because I couldn’t sleep because all that was going through my head during the night was how she was killed. So much for counting sheep…and for what?
There were over eighty people from all walks of life at her funeral. Six people stood up to eulogize her. I was asked if I wanted to say a few words. But what could I say? That the whole thing was a desecration? Just a fucking desecration, and that I was to blame? Stop blaming yourself, people tell me. That’s bullshit. Take responsibility for your actions is what I say. I was the reason—me and no one else is why this whole tragic thing happened. Had I been more responsible with the Glock, none of this would have happened. Had I decided upon a different career—as she had suggested—none of this would have happened. But my wife was very supportive of me. She was supportive of Meg as well. She always told both of us, whatever we want to be we can be. She said she’d support us 110%. What was I to say about her at her funeral? That she was behind me 110%? That I was too stubborn to change my ways? That the reason why I was in this business in the first place was because it was a lark?
At the funeral, those who did get up to talk spoke about what an angel she was. And the truth is, my wife was an angel. How else to describe her, but to say she was as sweet as can be? She worked like hell, and I understand she could be tough at work, but she was one of those rare birds who also had a gentle sweetness to her. There is no getting around that. You could see it not only in the way she and Meg got along, but with everyone else as well. She was a very unique individual. Everyone loved her. I still don’t know why she hooked up with me, of all people. She could have gotten anyone she wanted.
I remember the first time I met her parents. I could see it in their eyes even then—they wondered where in the hell their daughter had found such a creature. They thought our relationship was a temporary thing. Back then, even I thought it was temporary. But of course it wasn’t. We actually loved each other. It was good chemistry. Adeleine and I fit well together: her hand in my hand, her body against my body. It was as if we had been designed to physically complete each other. As I got older my body changed, and so did hers, but that fitting one body against the next didn’t change. We grew together through the years, and we always seemed to fit. We were one of those couples, the older we got the more we resembled each other. Our attitudes about life were also complimentary. I’m plodding. Unflappable. Set in my ways. She always said I was like a well-built house. Straight walls built upon a strong foundation. Adeleine had similar qualities of perseverance. But she was more graceful than I was. She was flexible, where I was fixed. It was this that really gave me a lot of security. When I saw that flexibility in her, it made me feel she understood me and that she could handle who I was.