Free A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

Widowhood—these first few minutes, hours—you might almost call it Pre-Widowhood for the Widow hasn’t yet “got it”—what it will mean to inhabit a free-fall world from which meaning has been drained—the Widow takes comfort in such small tasks, rituals; the perimeters of the Death-protocol in which experienced others will guide her as one might guide a stunned and doomed animal out of a pen and into a chute by the use of a ten-foot pole.
    Mrs. Smith? Do you have someone to call?
    Quickly I reply—Yes.
    Would you like any assistance in calling?
    Quickly I reply—No.
    These seem to be correct answers. It is not a correct answer to reply But I don’t want to call anyone. I want to go home now , and die.
    As we’d fantasized—neither of us wished to outlive the other.
    Though Ray had a horror of suicide—he did not think of suicide as any sort of romantic option—now he is dead , he would surely wish to return to life.
    These thoughts rush through my head like deranged hornets. I make no effort to deflect them, still less to slow and examine them. It is strange to be so assailed by rushing thoughts when I am moving so slowly—speaking so slowly—like one who has been slammed over the head with a sledgehammer.
    Already the time on Ray’s watch is 1:24 A.M.
    This hospital room is so cold—my teeth have begun to chatter.
    In the small windowless bathroom in the medicine cabinet—behind the mirror—in the unflattering fluorescent glare—my fingers close numbly upon a toothbrush—Ray’s toothbrush?—a badly twisted tube of toothpaste—mouthwash—deodorant—a man’s roll-on deodorant— clear-glide invisible-solid powder-soft scentless anti-perspirant deodorant for men— shaving cream, in a small aerosol container—how slowly I am moving, as if undersea—gathering my husband’s belongings to take home.
    Someone must have instructed me to undertake this task. I am not certain that I would have thought of it myself. The word belongings is not my word, I think it is a curious word that sticks to me like a burr.
    Belongings. To take home.
    And home , too—this is a curious word.
    Strange to consider that there would be a home , now—without my husband—a home to which to take his belongings.
    Here is Ray’s comb—a small black plastic comb—I have glimpsed amid his things, sometimes. When we’ve traveled together—staying in a single hotel room—a kind of intimacy more marked than the intimacy of daily life, which has acquired its own subtle protocol; at such times, I would see my husband’s toiletries kit and in it such articles as toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant etc. But also nail clippers, after-shave cologne, prescription pills. It would seem to me touching, it would provoke a smile, that a man, any man, should take such care to groom himself, as women take such care.
    That a man, any man, should groom himself to be attractive , loved— this seems wonderful to me.
    That a man, any man, should seem in this way to require another, a woman, to be attracted to him, and to love him—what a mystery this is! For to a woman, the quintessential male is unknowable, elusive.
    Even the domestic male, the husband—always there is something unknowable and elusive in him. As in Ray’s life, or perhaps in Ray’s personality, there has always been, for all our intimacy of forty-seven years—for the record, forty-seven years, twenty-five days of our marriage—a hidden chamber, a region to which he might retreat, to which I don’t have access.
    Now, Ray has retreated to a place where I can’t follow. Just behind his shut eyes.
    These toiletry things—that they were his , but are now no longer his , seems to me very strange.
    Now, they are belongings.
    Your husband’s belongings.
    One of the reasons that I am moving slowly—perhaps it has nothing to do with being struck on the head by a sledgehammer—is that, with these belongings , I have nowhere to go except home. This home —without my