Wife 2.0

“Do you want a bite, Linda?” you call out cheerfully from the living room. You’re settled into your recliner, hunched gleefully over a cinnamon roll. I pause, grip the broom hovering over a pile of debris in the middle of our tiny kitchen floor. I wanted to playfully scold you for the decadence of the cinnamon roll, but her name falls into the space between us. 

I am not Linda.

She was a force, a tiny package of brains and courage. Her presence filled a room. Years before I knew I would love you, I wept at her funeral. 

Now no longer small and fierce, she is forever contained, reduced to a box of ash tucked into the recesses of your closet, bones and teeth and memories. 

Linda is your dead wife. I choke on her name as I would choke, dry-mouthed, on the cinnamon roll, on the ashes.

The black box from the mortuary takes up more space than its size.

II

“Sweetie, can you bring me the pictures from the top of the bookcase?”

You call me “sweetie” now, perhaps afraid of how her name and mine intertwine in your mouth, pleasing neither of us.

It’s good that I don’t believe in ghosts; poster-sized canvases, photos from Linda’s memorial service, cascade down on me from the top of the bookshelf where I dared to pull the corner of a frame. Her face, repeated, rains down on my head. Your face, kissing her temple, bruises me.

You are cleaning, purging, heaping a pile of your old life in the middle of the garage. The floor is covered with junk and memories. I silently hand you the stack of photos, gazing one last time into her piercing blue eyes. You gently turn the top photo over, leaving me staring at white canvas, and tenderly place the canvases alongside the broken vacuum cleaner, the plastic bags of expired ginger candy gifted to us almost daily by the neighbor with Alzheimer’s, and the leash for a dog who no longer exists. I covertly slide notebooks filled with her spidery writing into the heap, hoping her words will no longer take up so much space in our home. 

I keep her journal hidden in our bedroom; I haven’t finished reading it.

Two fat men in a truck come to collect the pile. Grunting and sweating, they cart away your old life. I reassure you that you don’t have to do this, that you can keep bits and pieces of her until you’re ready to let go. 

Your reply is brusque, “I know. I’m ready.” And then, softly, “Thank you.” I touch your shoulder.

I still the urge to beg the two fat men to load their truck faster, to take her away, to let us live as a pair instead of a trio. 

III

You chose a sunny day to let her go. Hard things are always better on sunny days.

I walk silently beside you. For once, I don’t want to know what you’re thinking. Sand and shells crunch under my feet. I let the sound fill the space between us.

I watch your back, its shape as familiar to me as my own hands, as you step into the water. Foam laps at your knees. You dip your hand into the open bag of Linda’s ashes and toss them into the sea. 

The wind whips your second handful into the air toward the shore, toward me. Gritty ash lands on my bare arms; I shiver.

Will I always be coated with her residue? 

I lick my finger, salt and ash. A wave rises, washing Linda’s ashes from my skin. 

The sea quietly carries her away, as you turn and walk toward me.