Free The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan Page A

she went to bed earlier than early and forgot to leave a towel for his bath or water for his pills and lay propped up in bed beside her almanac. She had purposefully climbed in on Martin’s side of the bed, pretending to be asleep for a whole thirty minutes before she heard him sigh, walk around the bed, and lower his weight inside the cold half of the sheets. Anna pressed her face into her pillow and scrunched up her features. But Martin was snoring before he could feel the blankets shaking slightly up and down.
    * * *
    On Tuesday at 7:53 P.M. , Anna was fantasizing about choking to death when her phone rang. No one called at this hour. Martin wasn’t home yet, so she hoped it wasn’t someone trying to sell her something; somehow she could never figure out how to hang up on those people. She let it ring a few times just in case it was Martin dialing in his delay—she never answered right away, never wanted to seem like she was waiting.
    She picked up. It was the annoying woman who sat at the front desk of Martin’s firm. Occasionally she’d call to say he’d be running late—that there was some meeting or that his car wouldn’t start. Anna hated when she called. She had bad taste in Christmas cards and had let herself get fat.
    “Anna, hi, is that you?” She paused. Her voice sounded funny.
    “Yes it is. Is Martin running late?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “Hello? Sorry, can you hear me?” Anna hated the new phones Martin had installed last summer—she never knew quite where she should be talking into.
    “Yes, yes, I can. Anna . . .” She paused again. “They told me I should call you . . . better than the police or something. I . . . I really don’t know how to say this. Anna—Martin had a heart attack.”
    Anna swallowed.
    “Where is he? Which hospital? Last time they took him to Pembrook and he had to stay the night. Is he on that machine yet? Let me—” But the woman interrupted her.
    “Anna, I don’t think you understand. It’s not like that this time. He pressed the buzzer and we called 911, but when we got back in there he was . . . they tried . . . Anna, I . . . I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
    Anna was silent.
    “Oh . . . dear . . . I . . . is anyone else home?”
    “No.”
    “Anna . . . they did everything, really.”
    Silence hung between them for a good ten seconds.
    “You have a car, I presume, um, can you get to the hospital?” Anna could feel her throat tightening as the phone began to shake against her face.
    “I . . .” Anna swallowed. “I’m not supposed to drive into the city at night.” She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
    “All right, um . . .” She heard muffled voices in the background. “We’re sending someone. Sit tight, Anna, I . . . I’m so sorry.”
    Anna hung up the phone and stared at her watery steak. Surely there was some mistake. The desk lady was crazy anyway. Martin would drive home in an hour or two, tired, hungry, and homesick. And Anna would make him eggs and lie next to him in bed and read him his papers or his letters or some entries from her almanac. And he would roll over to her side of the bed and stay there forever. Agree to retire for good this time. And then they’d play golf, and cook, and see a show in the city, and she’d read him the scorecard and recipes and the playbill.
    Anna pushed her plate away, looking down then up then ahead, her features scrunched and paralyzed in silence. She lifted up her hands, clenching them slowly together. She stood up, walked into the living room, and then walked back to the kitchen. Martin wasn’t dead. He wouldn’t just die like that. People don’t just die like that. She pulled her steak in front of her, swallowing hunks whole, forcing down bites too large for her esophagus. Swallowed and swallowed and swallowed until it was gone. Until she hadn’t choked. Until she couldn’t swallow her throat’s other lump and let her wrinkled face