I talked about how I couldn’t write anymore. Or make love. Both acts a form of automation, a feeling of being outside of myself, watching from a distance, detached and robotic, my movements generated from memory instead of desire.
It’s lonely, I told her, feeling the thickness of those words roll off my tongue.
We were walking on the hard-packed sand by the water when I admitted this. The ocean was flat, motionless, small waves running over our feet. When I said it out loud, the skin on my arms puckered into small goose bumps, as if my body wanted to rid itself of this information.
“What’s crazy is that I miss doing both,” I said. “Even in the middle of having sex now, I’m aware that I miss how we used to make love.”
“I don’t think it’s so crazy,” she replied, her pace slowing as she took a sip of coffee from the cup she was carrying. “Both of those things require you to be present. Maybe you’re just taking a break. An emotional hiatus.”
I sighed. “For over a year?”
Peggy raised her eyebrows. “Yeah,” she said.
“Do you remember that feeling?” I asked. “After you lost your husband?”
“Do I ever.” Peggy sighed. “I remember not being able to breathe whenever somebody mentioned his name. We were high school sweethearts. Bought a house in the same town we grew up in. That was the hardest part. Seemed like every coffee house, restaurant, park, and beach had a memory of him. Of us.”
“You must have wanted to move,” I said, thinking of the Salt House, how all those memories made my chest heavy, my legs weak.
“Disappear is more like it. But Alex was just a boy, and then Elliot was born. I think that forced me to deal with it. I had to drive to school, and to the park, and all of those places that had all those memories. Little by little, it just got easier. Then one day—and I remember it so well—it was maybe a year later, or more, I don’t know. That’s not important. Anyway, I was in the car with Alex, just driving—I don’t even remember where we were going—and we passed this family. A man and a woman and a little boy. They were riding bikes on the path near the beach, and this picture popped into my head. Like a snapshot. And I turned to Alex in the passenger seat and said, ‘Do you remember when your dad tried to learn how to Rollerblade? He kept falling off the path onto the sand, and then he got going too fast and ran into the trash barrel and tipped it over and it spilled and he ended up in a pile of trash in the dune?’ and we both laughed about it. And I mean, I really laughed.”
She looked over at me, still surprised, it seemed. “Anyway. Now I’m desperate to remember the memories. I write them down sometimes, so I can tell the kids about him. A way of keeping him alive, I guess. There’s no sadness anymore when I think of him. If anything, it’s the opposite. I miss him, sure, but I always smile when something reminds me of him.”
“Thanks for telling me that,” I said. “Some days I think I’m there, and then suddenly, I’m at the not-breathing part again.”
She was walking next to me, close enough that our elbows bumped occasionally. I looked over at her, thankful for her friendship. It spurred me on, her fortitude. These same words hurt Jack, worried my mother.
I thought back to when Peggy and I first met, remembering I’d been unable to breathe on that day as well.
I’d taken Orange Kitty for his annual appointment at the veterinarian’s office. When I was returning him to his carrier after the doctor had finished, I noticed a tiny baby sock in the corner. Flakes of catnip seeped through the holes in the cotton. Orange Kitty had scuttled in to retrieve it, and it was clear why he’d gone in the carrier so willingly at home. The girls must have used the makeshift toy to lure the cat into the carrier for his appointment last year. I kept a bag of catnip in the pantry, and the girls had used a sock to hold the catnip. A small sock. Maddie’s sock. The sight of it made my hands shake.
I paid for the visit and made it outside to the parking lot before the tears came, fast and blinding down my face. It had been brutally hot out, the AC in my car broken, so I’d walked around the side of the building. There was a small courtyard in the back with benches and a scattering of small animal statues. A plaque on the ground dedicated the space to Our Beloved Friends. I sat down on the bench, pressed a tissue to my eyes, and tried to breathe.
I don’t know how long I sat there before I realized a woman was sitting across from me, also with a small carrier, yet hers appeared to be empty. It was obvious she’d been crying too, and she gave me a small nod when I looked up at her.
“My carrier had a guinea pig in it from my son’s class,” she said. “I only had to keep it alive through Columbus Day. Three days. Then in comes a heat wave. In October. I didn’t even know Maine got heat waves. And apparently guinea pigs are prone to heat stroke. Prone to it. So not only is my son the new kid in town, but his mother has just murdered the class pet.”
Despite myself, I laughed. She looked surprised, and then laughed too.
That was almost a year ago, and although we’d become good friends, we’d avoided the tough stuff until now.
I’d told her about Maddie when we first became friendly, of course, but we didn’t dwell on it. It was one of the reasons I enjoyed her company. Alden was a small town, smaller after Maddie died. After the story of her death made the papers, I felt like I had eyes on me wherever I went.
With Peggy, I could just exist. Just be.
Now, I raised my face to the sun, felt the heat spread over my forehead and tickle the tops of my cheeks.
“How are things?” I heard Peggy ask, and I looked over at her. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” she continued, “you know, between you and Jack?”
“He wants to finish the Salt House. He wants to scatter her ashes. He wants to make love more than once every couple of months. He wants us to be . . . us again. All things I can’t begrudge him.” I felt the words release something inside of me as they left, a lightness of sorts. They’d felt heavier unspoken.
“How were you guys before you lost her?” she asked quietly.
“Good,” I answered, knowing this to be true. “I mean, we had our stuff, like every married couple. But sex wasn’t an issue, if that’s what you mean.” I smiled at her, a tight-lipped smile that didn’t reveal how much it hurt to admit this. I was the one who’d made intimacy in my marriage an issue. This I knew.
“You and I talk so much, but I don’t know Jack at all. I mean, we met that night at your house, but we didn’t talk much.”
“No,” I agreed. “Sorry for that. He was against the dinner party from the start. Social things have never been high on Jack’s list.”
“Ah,” she said. “Well, I’m happy you guys were good . . . I mean, before all this stuff. . . . I’m relieved to hear it’s just a rough spot.”
It wasn’t so much what she said that struck me as odd, but how she looked after she said it, as if she’d been contemplating it for some time and was glad to put it to rest.
“Do we seem doomed?” I asked. “I mean, is that why you’re asking?”