Moving On

In retrospect, it had been obvious that Kellis was dying all through that long icy winter. He shivered earlier in the year than usual, started piling on sweaters as early as October, when usually he would go around town in shorts and Birkenstocks until early November. He was pale; he slept later and later into the day, fell asleep earlier and earlier. Lorraine wished she’d noticed. She clung to the fact that he’d never reported feeling ill, and asked the doctor why that was when her husband arrived, DOA, at the emergency room on leap day. The doctor had shrugged, told her he’d know more after the autopsy, that sometimes stomach cancer could be asymptomatic. When he finally called her back, it was tell her how unfortunate it was Kellis hadn’t come in sooner, because they if they’d caught it, they could’ve treated it.

So, she resolved that she would move on, and began to look for a new house. She couldn’t bear to sleep in the bedroom they’d shared, couldn’t bear to look out at the front yard, at the azaleas he’d planted. She found a house, a nice little single-floor house out in Ohio. It was, most importantly, far away and she thought it would make a nice change to receive welcoming, rather than consoling, casseroles from the neighbors. She packed quickly and carelessly, shoving blankets and pillows in boxes marked ‘fragile’ and her dining wear in a box that said no such thing. She used the bubble wrap to shield her books from one another, and left the Christmas tree ornaments to fend for themselves, unpadded in their giant Tupperware crates. It didn’t matter; she’d buy new plates and new ornaments to go with the new house. She left her gardening equipment, their shared gardening equipment, in the garage, knowing that she would never plant a petunia without thinking of him and stopping, knee deep in mulch, and beginning to cry. She thus had no interest in ever planting a petunia again.

The drive was long, made even longer by her inability to listen to any CD that had been his. Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and a thousand others were all tucked carefully into the glove compartment, where they would be safe, but where she would never have to look at them or listen to them again. She played the Toy Story soundtrack on a never-ending loop, because at least she couldn’t hear his off key, sore-throat voice singing along to “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”. She stopped frequently to read the map, gnawing her lip and blinking rapidly to remain stoic as she discovered she was suddenly lacking her navigator.

Lorraine finally arrived at the new house at three in the afternoon, almost two days later. She went out to lunch and had a hamburger for the first time in fifteen years, because tofu made her think of him. She stopped at the local liquor store on her way back. When she returned to the house, she stood outside for some time, wine bottle hanging heavily by its neck from her sweaty hand. She observed the house’s one floor, its double door and its white picket fence with a slight frown. She forced herself to believe that it would do, that she could be happy here.

The moving van had already come and gone while she was out eating. The burly men she’d hired had dumped her innumerable boxes at random into empty rooms, which hadn’t been assigned a purpose yet. Her new neighbor, an overweight woman with a bad perm and a kind smile, made her way slowly across the driveways to shake Lorraine’s hand and give her a jell-o mold. Lorraine accepted it gratefully and smiled for the first time in two months. She was surprised to find that smiling did not remind her of him too strongly. She told herself it was because she’d only smiled, not been happy.

That night, Lorraine sat on a box she thought contained her wedding china, eating the jell-o and drinking the wine for dinner, as she unpacked the box that sat in front of her. It was, so far, full of books. She had also come upon a few socks and one lonely tube of toothpaste. She reached a blind hand into the box, as she contemplated the concept of wine jell-o, which she figured there must be, if there were jell-o shots. The book she pulled out was not one she’d seen before. It was bound in brown faux leather. The cover was blank. She took a sip of wine and held the book open in her left hand, eyebrows raised. A date was written across the top of the first page.

11/ 21/ 04. She couldn’t remember if anything significant had happened on that day. Beneath that date volume II was written and her stomach and heart gave a simultaneous lurch, like a car backfire, as she recognized the handwriting. Underneath volume II, in Kellis’ distinctive chicken-scratches, was written, I was supposed to go to the doctor today, but I couldn’t do it. I know what they’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it. I didn’t tell Lorraine about the appointment—didn’t want to upset her, when there’s no reason to. Meditated for four hours today, while she was at work. Just focusing on visualizing health’s victory in my body… she turned the pages, her heart beating in her throat and her eyes hot, to an entry a month later. Lorraine and I went sledding today, the entry began, it was fun, but I could hardly enjoy myself. I should’ve been meditating. I can feel it getting bigger, everyday, like it’s going to take over my whole body and eat me alive from within. If I can just focus every ounce of my energy on obliterating those tumor cells, I know I’ll be fine. Mind over matter. Lorraine wanted to scream. She forced herself to keep reading through blurry squinting wet eyes, her hands trembling. She turned to late February, a week before he died; I haven’t been able to eat for days, he wrote, and I threw up blood this morning. I can see my body overcoming this, I see my recovery every day in my mind’s eye— see myself living for years and years and years, Lori and me growing old together. I don’t know why it isn’t working. Maybe it is… I guess I can’t really know. But if it was working, I wouldn’t feel sicker, would I? I wonder what happens after you die. I hope I’m reincarnated as some kind of bird. That would be really nice...Lorraine will be waking up soon. I’m going to go make her some breakfast. She remembered that day, remembered him surprising her with blueberry pancakes and tea in bed, remembered leaning in to kiss him thank you and him pulling away, telling her that he was getting a cold sore. She realized now he didn’t want to risk her tasting his stale vomit mixed with Colgate. She remembered offering him a bite of the pancakes and remembered him shaking his head, politely she’d thought, but now that she looked back on it she realized that his face had turned a sick cement green at her offer. He’d known. He’d known he was sick all along, known he was dying and he’d done nothing. She felt herself erupt, explode into sobs. She swore. Her entire body shook with rage and grief as she turned on the fireplace, her fingers slipping on the dial. She poured the rest of her glass of wine over the book, and began to wind up to throw it into the fire. She couldn’t do it, though. Her arms fell limp to her sides, deadweights, as she fell to her knees and clutched the soaked book to her chest, her entire body trembling. She watched, transfixed, as the fire scorched the bricks black and she struggled to control her breathing. Shakily, she dropped the book back into the box and stared at the flames, burning them into her eyes and letting them speed the evaporation of tears from her cheeks.