Widows lose themselves in thought, revisiting the litany of “if onlys.” If only he hadn’t taken the main road. If only he hadn’t climbed up on that roof. If only he’d just listened to me. If only my mother hadn’t asked us to come over that day. If only I simply hadn’t accepted her invitation. I needn’t have gone out of town . . .
Widows don’t use lipstick or eyeliner. They’re beyond caring for their bodies or their hair. They don’t ever turn to the looking glass.
Widows have to look after the children by themselves, and once these are grown, they will look after themselves by themselves. For now, they must be both mother and father. If, as Freud held, no parent succeeds at child-rearing, widows are failures twice over.
Widows eat the tomatoes husbands planted in the garden. They transform every last part into jars of sauce and preserves. A year later they unscrew their jars and, in the moment of serving, say: “Dad planted these.” The children smile, but bitterly.
Widows listen to the records their husbands used to listen to, listen to the radio programs their husbands used to listen to, read the newspapers their husbands used to pore over.
Widows learn how to change a lightbulb, check the car oil, and drill holes in a wall, while realizing they could have picked up such skills a lot sooner.
Widows daydream about their husbands coming back. Sometimes they play the silly game of dolling up for their return. In hair salon chairs, they smile at themselves.
Widows run their homes as they please. Things are no longer strewn everywhere: no key rings or wallets or soiled clothes or newspapers or stub-filled ashtrays. No shirts to iron, no trousers to hang on the washing line.
Widows are afraid of mirrors. They’re also afraid of reflections, shadows, and blurrings. They greatly dislike when curtains swell in the wind. They can’t abide slamming doors or when the house creaks. They endlessly fear invisible things.
Widows fear growing old, of catching up to their husbands. They dread passing the age their husbands were when they died. They’d hate to be the elder spouse. One day they’ll be old enough to be their husbands’ mothers, making them the mother of that dead child.
Widows jot down little thoughts about everyday matters in notebooks, addressing most of these pages to their husbands (covertly, so they won’t be thought insane).
Widows visit the cemetery: their very own secret refuge, rendezvous, way out, incontestable excuse. Widows have a modest gift: the ability to absent themselves at will.
Widows take in a cat, which they pet while watching TV. Often they detest this animal, which they feed at best in an absent-minded way.
Widows get pointed out in the neighborhood: there’s something about them. Some people can only see them as courageous sorrowfuls. They’ve been transformed into guinea pigs, objects of experiment.
Widows don’t know how to spend their free time, much less their holidays. They study the calendar, close up the empty spaces, plug the gaps. Widows don’t care for Friday evenings. They have a horror of Sundays.
Widows clean house to fill the time. They wash the windows, and swab the floors, and scrub the bathroom from top to bottom—the better to rub out the stain that has settled over their homes.
Widows have no monopoly on sorrow, as we all know, just as everyone keeps telling them. Their interlocutors pass them over or else neglect to reply to their advances. Whatever they say, not every widow is merry.
Widows don’t make love. They sleep in the big marital bed but steadily keep to their own side. Those first weeks, they sleep with their heads buried in their husbands’ pillows without ever changing the pillowcases.
Widows are lost, eternally clinging to this detail, that image, a single word, keeping on living for want of any other choice. Sometimes they die.
Widows are afraid to remember. They would rather not. They just can’t bring to mind that last exchange—a blank spot has imposed itself. They can’t hear the beloved voice anymore. No matter how intently they listen, it continues to elude them.
Widows confuse words. Their memory lapses, language betrays them; they struggle to escape slips of the tongue. They read mourning instead of morning, dead instead of dad, tomb instead of room, and casket instead of basket. Muddling syllables, they’re assailed by late-onset dyslexia. The vocabulary of death obsesses them. They loathe the word died, which they read as decide. (They refuse to think one could decide to get oneself killed.) They can’t endure such expressions as dying to know, dead on arrival, and dead tired. They examine the words others employ in their company and wonder if the speakers realize just what they were saying. They are obsessed with the eternal presence of death in life. They are specialists.
Widows dare not say what their husbands might have been: pathetic, brutal, indifferent, selfish. They obliquely refer to the dead men’s characters, making minor revisions to family history. Here is what widows dare not say: good riddance.
Widows take the family finances, the business, and the client list firmly in hand. They receive the insurer, the banker, the printer, the courier. Certain widows mutate into men; some of them distinctly enjoy it.
Widows are inconsolable. They are elsewhere, out of reach, eternally lost, at the far edge of life, pleasure, beauty.
Widows aren’t fools. They’re aware that people watch and scrutinize and make their judgements. Theirs it is to maintain composure and honor the memory of the dead, maintain models of rectitude.
Widows belong to the lone woman clan. Invitations to dinners with female friends and girls’ nights on the town are thrust on them. They are flung together with women who are divorced, separated, or single, but they don’t recognize themselves in this community. They do not care for it one bit, this world without men. They have no great problems with men.
Widows feel dread at the sight of families and jam-packed SUVs. Stomach pains grip them whenever a child says Daddy. To escape drawing attention to themselves, they smile dumbly.
Widows, newly eligible, pose a threat to other women.
Widows leave home by stealth, taking public transport or taxis. Sometimes they will meet a man in town, someone they may come to love, for they are still capable of loving, and of being loved. But they tell no one. They feel guilty at heart.
Widows remarry. They’ve rebuilt their lives, people say. It is then everyone forgets they are widows.
