To Seek a Tranquil Grief

CHAPTER 1 It has been said that only the wise know truth. Julie Taylor understood that there is an even deeper truth within the maxim: Even the wise are at first fools. Death made one philosophical. She had watched the world continue outside her window for over twenty-four hours. Passing motorists; a man walking his dog; the spider weaving her web on the outside sill; floating cloud formations traveling eastward over the graceful sway of the treetops; and all the other many things of which we rarely take notice on days less momentous. That the world continued to turn was baffling. Surely it should have stopped for a moment. In tribute. But it didn’t. It was spinning, though changed. It had become a cold, brutal place that had bludgeoned her with loss. Her mind began drifting to subtleties—small things, yet significant now. Socks. How many times had she complained about laundering his socks? Always finding them in the basket in the same fashion by which they had been removed—rolled down, cast aside into dirty inside-out balls. Having to set them right. Having to slide a hand through the sweat-soaked, toe-jam infested, athlete’s-foot-breeding balls of cotton just to be able to wash them. Then to have one mysteriously vanish in the dryer through some black hole-like phenomenon. How was it that two socks could enter but only one emerged? It was a laundry mystery—the Bermuda Triangle of domesticity. She asked herself what she would give to know that tomorrow a gym bag full of his sweaty clothes awaited her. Yesterday they were offensive; today they would be cherished. She thought of the toilet seat. She had a mission statement involving toilet seats. Up, down, one way or the other, it was his responsibility to remember. What great importance had she placed on this act? Couldn’t the user either raise or lower as needed? Were there not other, more pressing concerns in the world around us? What would she give now to find the toilet seat up? Yesterday it had been inconsiderate; today it would mean he was home. And then there were the details of tiny, precious things lost. Things special only to her. Images she would never again witness. Like the methodical way in which he pulled his belt from his jeans one loop at a time, instead of yanking it through in one swift motion as she would have him do. He refused to be reformed in this. And his “thinker” pose, she would call it—like the Rodin sculpture—when he would kneel in beautiful nakedness to stretch his knees. She loved that pose so much that he bought her The Thinker bookends as a reminder of it. She strained to smile thinking of it now, but her mind continued drifting. To things of greater significance. She thought of times after petty arguments, when she walked away in a pout, assuming after an adequately torturous amount of time, she might release him from the silent treatment. Could she testify that the moment to do so would arrive? Had she ever stopped to realize the grand assumption she made? And in doing so, did she run full bore into his arms to set things right? Lovemaking. How many times had she been too tired or too hurried to participate when he asked to share with her the finest expression of his love, putting him off until tomorrow, even when she knew how exquisite it would be? Until tomorrow. What of the light in his eyes, the curve of his shoulders. The calluses lining capable hands that were now…forever still. How many times had she ever taken serious notice of these things? All these details that said…I am. She recalled conversations among friends—their complaints about never having any time to themselves. What would they do with this enormous solitude? Julie was facing a remaining lifetime of once coveted moments of solitude. Yet now she would give every second of them back for just one more day with him—for just one chance to tell him how foolish she had been, how irresponsible with his presence. If she thought she could survive this, her new mission in life would be to become a teacher—a teacher of fools—one to enlighten a world of other women, like her, who had lost touch with the most important quality of him: His being.