When Things Get Back to Normal Read Online Free PDF Page B

considerably younger than me, the age difference disappears over a cup of coffee and an exchange of hurts. She, too, is working her way through a sorrow.
    I walked to work today. It was thirty below zero. That’s taking the wind chill factor into account. All the way there I cried behind my big woollen scarf. By the time Iarrived, my eyelids were dripping icicles. I closed my door and cried and cried and cried. I cried for the frustration and inconvenience of my life and for my cowardice in not driving the car.
    I picked up groceries this evening. I dread this chore because I’m embarrassed by the few items in my cart.
    I hurt all over when I see full carts. A full cart, a full life. Right? I go to great lengths to hide my singleness from the store clerks. For example, I buy more meat than I need because I don’t want the man at the meat counter to detect my solitary existence. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me and patronize me like I’ve often heard butchers patronize their customers: “Here you are, dear, a quarter pound of hamburger and four sausages.” I also dread meeting acquaintances in the aisles. I notice them glancing in my cart to see what I’m eating these days. I think they expect to find toast and tea – the staples of the lonely.
JANUARY 22 –
Wednesday
    I met an old acquaintance yesterday. He’s in the radio business – program director, I think he said. He told me he will help me get on
Morningside
when my book comes out.
    How I ached to rush back and tell you this news.
    My friend L. came over last night. We talked about new beginnings – hers, not mine. She wondered whethershe will ever again trust a man. I guess it isn’t easy to move beyond betrayal.
    There was a beautiful sunset this evening, but without you it meant only the end of a lonely day and the beginning of a lonely night.
JANUARY 23 –
Thursday
    I have made a pact with myself. Before spring arrives, I’m going to wake up one morning and my second thought will be, He’s dead. I can’t imagine what my first thought will be, but it will have to be something very special.
JANUARY 28 –
Tuesday
    The house adjoining our lot at the back always has a light burning in the hall window. A widow’s house. Over the years, when I would notice this light I always whispered, “Please God, don’t make it necessary for me to light up a room to keep the dark at bay.” Now at this very moment my hall light is casting a yellow shadow over the concrete slabs in our driveway.
FEBRUARY
– Groundhog Day
    The children phoned. We talked about inconsequential things. Perhaps next year we’ll be able to say, “This is Dad’s birthday.”
    Several people from your department have asked me to supper, but I have always declined. I’m bone weary, emotionally and physically, and I don’t have any energy to expend on conversation, particularly on conversation which studiously avoids the subject of you. Besides, it is very draining to be around couples with whom we used to socialize.
FEBRUARY 7 –
Friday
    A. and I went to a restaurant. We go every Friday night. We talk and talk and talk. I don’t think I could get through the week without this night in the offing.
    Several pieces of mail arrived for you today. What pain it causes me when I have to readdress an envelope and check off “deceased” in the box marked “reason for return.” Another pain-filled piece of mail is the letter that is addressed to “the estate of. . . .” Death isn’t buried in the cemetery on the day of the funeral. You have to keep burying it over and over again.
    My energy level is still batting zero. I rarely clean the house. I, a typical Virgo, organized and neat to the point of fault, have become almost slovenly. Sometimes when Igo to my office and see the piles of assignments lying ungraded, I want to pick them up and in a frenzy scatter them