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  My eyes jerked to my fourth finger on my left hand and sure enough, there, shining in the dim light around the bar, was my wedding band. All at once I cursed myself under my breath. How could I have been so stupid, so ignorant? In all my turmoil and depression, followed by the hasty departure from Hillston and out into the unknown, I had completely forgotten to remove my wedding band. It was understandable, I suppose. After wearing it for even a few months I had come to forget it was even there, I never even noticed it. It just became… a part of me, just like a freckle or a scar. A scar. That’s exactly what it was. The evidence left behind from a terrible accident, sitting there to remind me at every glance of what had transpired. I looked away from the ring and back to Ralph, who was still staring at me, although with more warmth now, as if he could see that the question was troubling me and he was starting to regret asking.

  "Ralph… I really don’t want to--"

  "Dan, I’m sorry, I feel terrible for asking. I don’t know what got into me there. A man’s wife is his business and his business only. If things aren’t going well at home, I respect you not wanting to dive into the details. But let me tell you, Minnie and I have had our hard times, too. Yessir, we have. Had our spats and slaps."

  He downed the rest of his drink and started again, resting his hand on my forearm. "If you love her, though, and she loves you, you’ll find a way to make it work. Love is hard to come by, everybody knows that. You can’t let little things, or even some big things get in the way of love. You just have to put your head down, take your lumps and keep on trudging through, that’s the best advice I can--"

  "Ralph, my wife is dead!" The words came out strong and hurtful, and that’s exactly the way I had wanted them. Ralph had no idea what he was talking about, he didn’t know me or my situation, and I was sick of him sitting on his high horse. Ordering my food and my drinks for me was one thing, thinking he knew everything about my personal life was an entirely different bridge to cross, and I hated him for prying. "Excuse me for a second," I said, getting up from my stool.

  Ralph turned and looked straight ahead with his head down. I could tell he felt guilty, and I liked it. He deserved to feel like an ass.

  "I need to use the restroom."

  By the time I made it back to my stool I had calmed down a bit, my blood had slowed and the anger I felt towards Ralph had subsided. I was a lonely, depressed and guilty individual, and yes, I had caused all of those feelings, but Ralph was innocent for the most part. I was wearing the damn wedding band, after all, it was a logical assumption to think I was married, and Ralph made valid points. Amy came up in my conversations with people all the time, it was a given. The man was only trying to help, offering up friendly advice and some experienced guidance. I couldn’t fault him.

  I took my place back atop my stool and put a hand on Ralph’s shoulder. "Hey, Ralph, listen I want to apologize for--"

  "Oh nonsense, don’t start that shit!" he spun his head towards me. "I should have never gone mingling in your business. After all you’ve done to help me today and all, and how do I repay you? I go poking my wrinkled nose into places it shouldn’t be poking. I’m sorry, Dan, really. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to lose a wife."

  Chuck walked by. "Another round gentleman?"

  I answered this time. "Absolutely." The evening had suddenly grown sullen and another Jack and Coke might help erase the reasons why. Chuck looked to Ralph for confirmation and he nodded. Apparently you have to be elderly before you are granted the authority to order for people other than yourself. When our drinks arrived we both took a long sip and stared straight ahead for a moment. Then Ralph spoke.

  "I almost lost Minnie once." He looked to me with eyes that were saying, I don’t know your pain, but I’ve come close. "Yeah, it was about seven years ago. Pneumonia. It was winter, not particularly bad or anything, just cold and wet and she got sick. I don’t know how, she stayed inside most of the time, but it happened. It was a week after Thanksgiving. We had gone to visit her sister, Vivian, upstate. Maybe it was the trip that just wore her out, made her weak and susceptible, I don’t know, that’s what the doctors said. But, one day she was fine, the next she started coughing a bit. Two days later she was coughing up green mucus and speckles of blood. I wanted to take her to the hospital then, but she wasn’t having it. She can be damn stubborn she can and there wasn’t nothing I could do to make her see reason. I said at our age we couldn’t afford to ignore things like that. Still, she was relentless. I woke up the next morning to the sound of her struggling to breath next to me in bed."

  He was still looking straight ahead, but I could tell that his mind was no longer in the bar. The way he spoke, slowly and deliberate, he was living seven years ago, a time that had left an imprint on his life.

  "I shook her and at first she wouldn’t respond. The rattling in her chest as she wheezed sounded like somebody shaking a soggy cardboard box full of pebbles. She strained to suck in air, as if her windpipe had shrunken to the size of a coffee stirrer.

  "I shook her harder and finally she opened her eyes, looking up at me with confusion and fear. She opened her mouth to say something but no words came out, just a choking sound. I jumped up and ran to the phone on the nightstand and dialed 911.

  "I thought she was going to die right there, Dan. She looked like she didn’t have another two minutes of life in her. I thought every breath she managed to force in would be her last. I sat there on the bed next to her, holding her hand and telling her it would be ok until the ambulance arrived.

  "Timmy Alcorn, Jesse Sturgis and Adam Stills were the three that took the call, I knew them pretty well from my days on the force, and it took all four of us to get Minnie on the gurney and down the steps.

  Ralph turned to look at me again and there were tears in his eyes. I tried to hold his stare but finally had to look away. The sight of him like that wasn’t something I was prepared to see.

  "She wasn’t always obese, Dan." He wiped a tear from his cheek. "No, she didn’t used to be obese at all.

  "When I was sitting there with her in the hospital room after we got her checked in and drugged up, trying to steer her out of the woods and back onto the road of recovery, I didn’t see what everybody else saw when they came in. I didn’t see an old, fat woman who looked like it was finally her time to kick the bucket, probably brought on by one two many pieces of bacon." He actually laughed a little at this. I figured it was his way of trying to quickly erase the fact that he had been crying.

  "The Minnie I saw laying in that hospital bed, I.V. in her arm and breathing tube up her nose, was just as beautiful as the Minnie I met for the very first time all those years ago. Young and slim, nice curvy body, clear skin, shoulder length dirty blond hair, Dan she was beautiful. I saw her and I wanted to marry her that very same instant. She was… angelic."

  He sipped his drink and I did the same.

  "She didn’t start gaining the weight until many, many years later. We were both old by then and it didn’t matter." Again he laughed. "I won’t go into all the details, but let;s just say she had some health issues that speeded her weight gaining process up a few clicks of the dial.

  "She could try and exercise more, and God knows she could eat better, but she’s set in her ways. I’ve tried talking to her about it, but her mindset is different than mine and there’s not a thing in this forsaken world I can do about it."

  I thought about the burgers we just ate and for a moment considered letting Ralph know that he might not be the best person to talk to Minnie about dietary habits.

  Ralph continued. "She doesn’t care that she’s overweight, and runs the risk of… all kinds of complications. She tells me that she’s lived a good life, and that if the good Lord decides not the change her batteries the next day than so be it. She’s not scared to die.

  "But Dan, there’s one thing she doesn’t seem to realize, and this brings me to my point, about not knowing your pain, but can kind of imagine; because I do think abo
ut this a lot. Minnie may not be afraid to die, and honestly I’m not afraid of death either. What I’m afraid of is what my life will become if Minnie goes before I do."

  This time I turned to look at him, and when his eyes met mine I didn’t look away.

  "When I woke up that morning and heard her wheezing like that, Dan, and she couldn’t even speak to me, or barely open her eyes, I was scared to death. Scared to death that that morning would be the last time I would ever get to wake up next to her, scared that we’d had our last meal together, or our last conversation. Can you believe that, Dan? We’d spent over forty years of our life together and I still felt like there were so many things I needed to tell her, wanted her to know, even if I had no idea what they were yet.

  "To my friends I’ve always been the guy who had the answer. Part of that, I suppose, comes from my career as a Police Officer. I was good at what I did and I’ll be the first to admit I could be… very confident in most any situation. No task was too tough, or too impossible. I acted like I was invincible, impervious to setbacks."

  He looked away.

  "Dan, I know Minnie and I are getting on up there in years, and eventually, yes, we’re going to die. But, even though I know all that, know it’s a part of life and blah blah blah, if she had died that day seven years ago life the way I know it would have crumbled all around me."

  Yeah, I know the feeling.

  "I try not to think about it, really, because it upsets me too much. Minnie came home a few days after that morning, all better and back to her normal self, and even though I tried not to wear it on my sleeve, she could tell how upset the whole situation had made me. She told me that I was making too much of it, said that she had gotten sick, just a little worse than usual this time, but she was fine--we were fine--and that I should stop moping around." He smiled and shook his head. "God bless her."

  It was a touching story. Even more so coming from Ralph, who moments before he began to tell it seemed exactly as he had described himself, invincible--despite his old age. Having him open up and let down his shields for a bit to tell me what he had was unexpected, and although maybe he had good intentions, and I was glad that Minnie had lived, for Ralph’s sake, the story upset me all the same.

  Why had he told me all that? What good did it do? He set out initially I felt to let me know that he could sympathize with me, letting me know that he had experienced my pain, only somewhat. Well I call bullshit on that. It wasn’t the same at all. It was like reading a horror story of somebody else’s life, one that had a gut wrenching, makes you want to puke ending, and then saying, Oh wait, I’ve got a story just like that, just as scary, just listen… Oh, except mine has a very happy ending where the pretty girl doesn’t die and I get to go on with my life as if nothing happened. Sorry, I guess it wasn’t quite the same, huh? Oh well, want another drink?

  I wanted to say to Ralph, Hey, good story, I guess. Close, but no cigar. Then he finished up, and while he was making his point, trying to compliment me, really, I had my Ah-Ha moment. It was relieving, knowing there was a fix to this mess, and at the same time terrifying.

  "My point, Dan, is that no, I don’t know exactly how you feel, and dammit, I don’t want to. But even though I’ve only known you a day, after what you just told me I’ve got about all the respect in the world for you."

  I looked at him curiously.

  "I just don’t know how you do it, you must be a hundred times stronger than I am on the inside. I wasn’t kidding, you know. I wasn’t just trying to be all dramatic and shit. If Minnie were to die I don’t know how I would function. I can only speculate, but I feel as though I’d wake up in the morning feeling… useless." He shrugged. "I’ve been on this earth a long time, and for most of it the only thing on my mind, the only thing I worried about, the only reason I lived was to be with her, take care of her, love her." He drank the last of his drink. "If she was gone," he looked at me, "I could only hope the Lord would take me soon after. Because as far as I’m concerned my purpose in life would be done. I’d just be another man, wandering around aimlessly, looking for ways to stay busy and pretend he was normal. When inside I’d be a crying ball of sorrow. And that’s no way to live."

  Ralph paid the check against my wishes, but of course, as you know by now there’s no stopping him when he sets his mind to something. I tipped Chuck, he thanked me, and Ralph and I went out and got back in the Oldsmobile, headed back to the Homestead.

  The ride back was silent and seemed even quicker than it should have been. I don’t really remember any of it, it was basically a blur. My mind was racing and spinning in every direction possible. I felt sick to my stomach, and it wasn’t the Cholesterol Burger doing that, it was my fear. Ralph didn’t know it. How could he? But he had given me the answer I had been searching for. Now that I had it, it seemed so obvious I wanted to scold myself for taking so long to stumble upon it. It should have hit me from the get-go. I had sold my house, packed up my stuff and then headed out of town halfway across the damn country, trying to escape my demons, when all along I could have solved the problem right in my own house.

  And that’s no way to live. You’ve got that right, Ralph ole buddy. It is no way to live. And I was fucking sick of it.

  When we were parked in the driveway, we got out, gravel crunching under our feet and started around to the front door. Halfway up the porch steps Ralph said, "Dan," he grabbed my arm, gently. "How did she die?"

  At that point, I saw no sense in lying. It would all be over shortly. "Car accident. Pronounced dead at the scene." I must have sounded like a robot, dead of all emotion. Ralph gave my shoulder a squeeze, "I’m so sorry, truly." And then headed up the steps.

  Amy had died in a car crash, that much I knew. As I stepped through the front door and up the steps to my bedroom I was trying to decide how I was going to kill myself.

  Chapter 19

  Ralph and Minnie went to bed not too long after we had returned from dinner, Ralph helping Minnie up the stairs that creaked and strained with her every step, and them both wishing me goodnight as they closed their bedroom door behind them.

  I was lying on my bed when they came up, hands laced behind my head, staring up at the ceiling fan, no doubt with what I can imagine as contemplation and weariness on my face. It must not have showed though, because the usually inquisitive Ralph didn’t say a word as I sat up to return their bid goodnight, but maybe he felt he had pried enough for one night into the soon-to-be-ended life of Dan Dawkins. With the conversation at dinner he had apparently met his quota for the day.

  When I could no longer hear the faint trails of Ralph and Minnie’s voices coming from their bedroom, I spent the next hour pacing back and forth in mine, weighing my options, deciding on the best method. That sounds funny doesn’t it? Best method. Most people would probably agree that the best method would be to get in the bed, sleep off those bad thoughts and then wake up and seek immediate psychiatric assistance. Well, I’ve got news for you, those people have probably never caused their wives to kill themselves, along with their completely innocent five-year old nephew, all for a quick fuck. No psychiatrist in the world was going to help me, and I didn’t even want to pretend like I would give it a try. Sure, I could go sit in some plush office with wood floors and leather couches, telling my tale to some guy wearing an expensive suit, driving a Porsche, and who went home to his bombshell wife and two perfect kids, and probably a damn dog in a fenced in back yard, and who thought he had all the answers. When all along all he would do would be to sit there, listen inattentively, ask me a few pointless questions, and then scribble me a prescription for an anti-depressant. Well guess what, Mr. Porsche, no pill in the entire fucking planet is going to make me forget that when I go home at night there’s nobody waiting to hear how my day went, or when I go to sleep the other side of the bed is empty and cold, just like everyday of the rest of my life will be. So you can take that prescription pad and wipe your ass with it. As a matter of fact, just go ahead and shove it all the
way up in there, because that’s about what it’s worth to me.

  Some--most--would call me weak. I can’t say that I would disagree with them. It’s not like I’m the only man who’s ever lost his spouse, even to a terrible accident. It happens every day. Car crashes, plane crashes, shootings, cancer, heart attacks--death happens everyday and death doesn’t play favorites. My situation was unique for me, but in the grand scheme of things, Amy’s death was just another piece of data to compile a statistic. Set aside the guilt for a moment, and my life was no more torn and destroyed than any other husband out there who had received the same news as me--Sir, your wife is dead. The guilt weighed heavy, sure, but everyone would say the same thing. Other lives have already been lost, why make matters worse and take your own? Is it worth it, to cause more pain for everybody else?

  Why take my own life? I’ll tell you why, Ralph hit that nail square on the head. Ralph had said that if Minnie were gone then his purpose in life would be done. It was the most brilliant way I could think to summarize exactly what I was feeling. I quite possibly could go on with life, continuing whatever the hell it was that I was doing, driving from city to city, maybe eventually stopping for good some place and trying to start over. But I know that deep down I’d never feel any sense of accomplishment and desire about anything again. My purpose would be done. If Amy wasn’t there to share it with me, it wasn’t worth doing. That’s when I decided that no matter how hard I tried to forget, how much I lied to myself that life would go on, I’d never be the same person. And if I couldn’t be me, then who would I be?

  Turns out I got a horrible answer to that question.

  The first thought that came to me as to how to kill myself was definitely the way I would have preferred to go, and probably the most common among suicide attempters. Probably the most successful, too. The problem was that I didn’t have a gun. I went down the steps quietly, remembering the squeaks and groans that had produced as Minnie made her voyage up, and explored the downstairs of the house in search of gun. Surely Ralph owned one, whether a hunter with some rifles stored in a big cabinet I had overlooked someplace earlier, or maybe he still had his old piece from his time as a cop, stashed it away in some drawer in case of emergencies, I hoped for some luck. They both were good assumptions, but I found no gun cabinet anywhere after searching the rooms, and I realized that if Ralph did indeed still have his service pistol, or something like it, it would no doubt be upstairs with him in the bedroom, under the bed, or maybe in his dresser drawer under his socks. There was no way I could go snooping around their bedroom while they were asleep. I could have waited, let the sun come up and once they had awakened and started with their daily, albeit uneventful, routines, I surely could have found a moment alone upstairs to quickly give their room a thorough once over before they’d notice. Minnie couldn’t get up the stairs any faster than I could solve a Rubicks Cube--which was faster than you think, by the way--so she wasn’t a concern. And Ralph, well I’d have to make sure he was as far away as possible before I ventured in.