Left Behind

BOOK ENDS

Part Two

LEFT BEHIND

A Novel By

NEIL HETZNER

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2015, 2016 by Neil Hetzner

All Rights Reserved.

Left Behind is a revised version of the previously published novel A Widow in Weeds.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Martha Day, Philip Hetzner, Susan Lovejoy, Jeni Martin, and Lea Renfro for their close readings and extremely helpful comments. Insightful readers help keep this writer from stumbling too far off the path.

t.

Chapter 1

November 2012

Less than an hour of her duty had passed before Babette Carter realized just what a colossal mistake it was to have worn pumps. Even though her shoes had less than a two inch heel, her calf muscles were beginning to spasm and her toes were feeling like someone had taken a hammer to them. The seventy-two year old widow looked past the mourner who was standing directly in front of her, a man with a ruddy face and ruptured nose who had introduced himself as Seamus O’Dowl, to the parade of mourners that ran the length of Phinney’s largest viewing room before snaking behind the last row of burgundy chairs and slumping out the doorway into the lobby.

One hour down and two to go. I can’t. I’ll be writhing on the floor. Why did I agree to have calling hours? So not to fail Bob in death as I did so many times while he was living? To use these hours as a litmus test to see if Bob truly was held in such high regard as I, jealously, thought?

Babette’s eyes moved back from where the line passed through the doorway to the blue and purple veins webbing the nose of the man–What was his name? Something very Irish– before her. Babette nodded, murmured thanks and thanks again as the man expressed the same sentiment—that Bob Brighton was a great guy—in a half-dozen ways.

Shouldn’t there be a clock, a timer, with a muted somber tone that would announce that a mourner’s fifteen seconds of memory, sorrow, or regret were over? Next. Please, God, next.

Babette thought of how much of what she was doing at that moment in Phinney’s resembled the book signings she so often had done at Barnes and Noble, Waldenbooks, Brentano’s, Powell’s and dozens of independent bookstores, stores that mostly had punning or whimsical names.

Except. A big exception. When signing books I was sitting down, and there was a good chance, a very good chance, that I would have been able to kick off my shoes.

After the Irish nose left, it was replaced by a diminutive ancient couple with matching hair color, sparkling blue eyes, and soft, melodious voices. As the couple described their feeling about losing Bob, his widow’s mind flew to the far end of the room and looked back to study herself as a petite woman with a severe gray pageboy, severe black suit, and cream-colored blouse. While scores of people were present for Bob, that fragile-looking woman was standing alone with no one to share her burden. That disembodied, authorial mind thought that it was one of the saddest, loneliest things she had ever witnessed.

Babette shifted her weight from her left foot to her right. She had been using this stratagem to endure the pain in her feet for the last quarter hour; however as the time shortened between putting her weight on one foot and then the other, she began to worry that those queued mourners who were watching her as a way to make the time pass might think she was in need of a bathroom.

As Wilfred and Irene Davis shuffled off on their short thick legs, Babette cast a rueful eye over to where Bob was lying in his casket. Looking at the perfectly tied knot that nestled between the points of his perfectly ironed collar, she wondered if Bob would have chosen the same tie that she had. As the next mourners began their prepared condolences, Babette’s eyes stayed on Bob a second longer than was polite. What a godawful color. Had any human skin, correction, had any live human skin ever been that color? The color reminded her of the skin tones of cheap dolls made in those early post-war years when Made in Japan had not been an indicator of quality and the flaky, cakey, pancake make-up that would be found at Kresge’s. Babette thought that she could write healthy, ruddy, sallow or jaundiced in describing a character and a reader would not argue with her choice. But that color in the casket? How could that be described? Did that color even have a name? Pity the poor person who had painted Bob and awaited praise. Had anyone who had had to look at that color not shuddered? An urn would have been a better representation of Bob than the caked and waxed object residing in the box fifteen feet from her.

… You’re so kind to say so. Yes, he will be sorely missed.

Ashes. A life up in smoke. Dust to dust, but rapidly so. No months or years’ long process going from suit and flesh to rags and sewage to, finally, something that if not dust, at least, could be pounded into dust.

I need to review my funeral instructions. I need to be certain that no one has to do for me what I am doing now for Bob. I need to be absolutely sure that no one has the opportunity to open up a box of unearthly colors and spend the morning painting how they imagine I might have looked ... when in better health.

… Thank you. Hearing that truly is a comfort to me.

What had Trina done with Ty and Farley?

She never had asked her older sister. She had not cared. She had left her so-called parents long before they took their earthly leave.

Had there been burial money?

It didn’t seem like there would have been. Certainly, she had no memory of Trina asking her for money. Had Trina paid whatever the costs might have been? More likely, it had been paid for by the VA. Had they been buried or cremated? And, if so, where? Trina would know.

… Yes, it is amazing how many lives he touched.

Why don’t I feel sadder? Is it that I really don’t feel that sad, or is it that I’m afraid to let myself feel my sorrow? Elnora had strong emotions and she let herself feel them. How could I admire her and emulate her in so many ways, but not emotionally? Why don’t I … What a strange hat.

Because it took so much self-control not to burst out laughing at the tiny green hat perched precariously on the head of a very large woman limping toward her, Babette knew that her nerves were well-frayed and close to breaking.

After the woman stopped in front of Babette, she twisted her head away before asking, And you are?

Babette found herself nodding in approval at such an unorthodox beginning after having scores of mourning strangers introduce themselves to her.

I’m Babette. Bob’s wife.

When the woman’s head tilted even further away from Babette toward the rows of chairs, Babette wondered if she might have a hearing disorder or macular degeneration. Her mannerisms reminded Babette of trying to have a conversation with Phil Herioly, a Lincoln scholar, who had a severe case of macular degeneration. Phil’s face had to be at almost a ninety degree angle to see the person to whom he was speaking.

Didn’t know he was married. Didn’t act married. Him bein’ married is as big a surprise to me as him bein’ dead. Now, what do I do?

Bob was helping you?

Can’t say his dyin’s been any help. They say half a loaf’s better’n none. But, half a will? Doubt that’s true.

I’m sure if you call Bob’s secretary she’ll be able to help you.

Who’s that?

Holly.

Holly? That little girl? I thought that was his girl-friend. No one makes it easy.

When the woman shook her head at the notion of such a complicated world, Babette feared the miniature cardinal nestled down in the hat was going to be thrown from its nest.

Don’t know if I’d call her.

Bob always thought that she was very good at what she does.

But, she would have to do something for someone before they’d know that, wouldn’t she?

Babette wished the woman would stay with her until calling hours were over. She was positive that some part of this woman—her language, her hat, her turning away from her listener–would be used in her writing sometime. As the woman gave a perfunctory nod, a movement that startled the bird, before limping off, Babette imagined her saying, Didn’t act like he was married. Maybe I’d better take another look, while turning toward the casket.

As the woman walked away Babette fought against a feeling of wanting to rush from the room. Back in August in those first days after Bob’s accident, she had surprised herself with just how willing she was to respond to his needs given that her standard response to emotionally complicated situations was to cultivate a vacant face and a neurasthenic heart. Her lifelong tendency had been to leave dealing with complicated emotions to the characters in her novels. However, after the initial concern at the damage done to a hip from Bob smashing into the wall of a Jefferton College squash court, she had taken to the idea of sacrificing some of the freedom she had so carefully guarded for decades to tend to her damaged mate. When that tedious work came more easily than she ever would have guessed, Babette took pride in her hitherto unknown and unexpected capacity to sacrifice. It wasn’t until the last month when Bob’s hip replacement went bad from sepsis that she had begun feeling overwhelmed not only with caring for Bob but also with the expectations of becoming a widow.

In the final weeks, as Bob’s metabolism lost a lifetime’s discipline, as he sweated and shivered, often at the same time but in different parts of his body, as he made articulate moans and inarticulate sentences, as he shifted from a near hibernative state to a jerking, twitching frenzy, Babette’s emotions had swung from fear, to resentment, to feeling engulfed. She had fought those feelings, and she had forced herself, commanded and demanded of herself, that she dampen another wash cloth, hold a hot clammy hand until her own was in the same condition, and issue soothing comforting words from her own discomfited, despairing mind.

Babette rocked back on her heels to relieve the knots forming in her calves as she thought, Two more hours, one more duty.

Babette was murmuring her appreciation to a toad-like woman with unruly red hair when she became aware that something had changed in the tenor of the room. Tipping her head sideways past the explosion of red that surrounded the woman’s head, Babette saw Cody Black, dressed in clown-sized black sneakers, black jeans, wrinkled white shirt and a decades’ old blue blazer lumbering past the queue. Her friend didn’t stop until he stood less than a yard from the back of the red-haired woman. Despite his stertorous breathing and the rumbling of the floor as he had made his approach, the woman seemed oblivious to Black’s presence until he stepped forward, leaned his massive head as close to her ear as the corona of her hair allowed, and whispered something that caused the woman to scurry away.

Cody leaned forward until his lips were close to Babette’s exposed ear. For mercy’s sake, Little Bee, kick off those horrible shoes. You’re wriggling like you’re gonna make a wee. You’re supposed to be a widow, not a fucking martyr. Off. Now.

Like a knight of yore rescuing a damsel in distress, Cody Black turned, stared hard at the mourners and challenged any of them to make an unkind judgment as Babette put a hand on his hammy shoulder and used it to steady herself as she pushed off her shoes.

Even after Babette’s feet were free, Cody Black stood by her side staring at the crowd. When he was satisfied that no one was making a face at the impropriety of what she had done, he shambled over to the first row of chairs, sat down, and prepared himself to oversee the mourners like a parochial school study hall monitor.

The minutes passed slowly; dozens upon dozens of strangers offered their regrets; however every time Babette looked up there were more mourners slowly coming into view as if through fog. They sniffled, spoke, patted, and slowly passed back into the fog. When her energy or interest flagged, Babette would look over to where Cody Black was sitting. Each time she did, she found his eyes trained on her. He would offer her the slightest smile, a subtle nod, and, once, she thought, a wink.

After calling hours were over, after the last saddened soul was on his way to the parking lot, after Elliot Phinney had finished summarizing the event as if he was a sports announcer re-capping a game, the newly widowed Babette Carter allowed Cody Black to take her hand, guide her out of the house of death and remembrance into a starry-skied chilly November night, walk her across the deserted parking lot. Before helping her into her car he gently patted the back of her head, and bent his ursine body to give her a delicate, though rather long, ursine hug. When Black offered to come with her, she told him she needed to be alone.

* * *

Babette was back looking in her refrigerator and wondering if she would feel less guilty if she waited until the food spoiled before throwing it away. It was a hard decision. She didn’t want to have to eat a spiral ham glazed with something sticky, its serrated marked sides falling over like wilting petals. She didn’t want to look at a CorningWare casserole three quarters full of farfalle tossed with spinach and clams. She didn’t want to deal with a baptismal-sized bowl filled with many of the fruits that had flourished in Eden. What she wanted were empty shelves. Her problem was how to achieve that end with the least amount of guilt.

After closing the refrigerator’s stainless steel door, the widow took a moment to construct a society where the last act of sending a soul on its journey to Beyond was to make a pyre from the leftovers. Finger sandwiches of roast beef and Boursin or ham, Fontina and Dijon mustard would be thrown on top of a roasted turkey denuded of its breasts but still sporting both wings, one leg and a thigh, all to be kindled with a half stale baguette.

As she stepped away from the refrigerator, the widow’s mental image changed from a fire to a black kayak with the body of the departed strapped in and all of the tiny boat’s spaces filled with rolled slices of Swiss cheese and Buffalo chicken or prosciutto, pasta shells stuffed with sage and ricotta, lasagna, and the shell-shocked—don’t use shell twice in the same sentence–sobbing mourners pushing the tiny craft out into the current that would carry the dead to the next world.

Rather than a full refrigerator, what the widow wanted was a glass of tepid water, a Ry-Krisp or two, and twenty minutes to be inert. Not organizing. Not listening. Not talking. Not hugging. Not consoling. Not being consoled. Not remembering. Please, no more remembering just for twenty minutes. Not attempting to be sad, or teary. No energy expended not to be sad or teary. No grieving.

Just to be alone with the crunch of a boring cracker, water neither hot nor cold, and twenty minutes of inertia. Then, after that small respite, forward into widowhood. Widowhood–that undocumented postscript to marriage.

* * *

Little Bee.

Whether she was married or widowed, foundering graduate student or honored professor, unpublished writer or moderately famous author, Cody Black had never called Babette Carter anything except Little Bee. Black first had used that sobriquet in anger after Babette had destroyed a short story he had read in their Short Fiction Writing seminar at the end of the first semester in the MFA program in fiction at Johns Hopkins University.

Babette turned the phone away from her mouth so she could swallow the last of her cracker before answering, Are you bird dogging an old lady?

Checking up. Checking in. How beats your wounded heart?

Erratically.

That sounds about right. How about your feet?

Feeling like they’d climbed Mt. Holyoke in heels.

Just like the Smith girls used to do every spring. That was quite a parade. A lot of people liked Bob and a helluva lot of people love you.

You southern boys surely do know how to load a plate. If you flip the like and the loved around, I think you might be on to something. I probably knew less than a third of the people in that line and all of them just kept saying what a wonderful man, what a kind, generous and thoughtful man, what a terrific lawyer Bob was.

That must have made you feel good.

You know, Cody, what it made me feel was that maybe I didn’t know my husband as well as I might have.

When her longest, if not best, friend didn’t respond to the offer of that ripe fruit, Babette wondered whether that was because he had too little or too much to drink. She guessed it was probably the former.

Can you cover one more class for me? It’ll be the last time.

That’s one of the reasons I called. I’ll take care of your have-to’s and you take care of your feet.

You’re a dear.

If only the world would say it loud, Little Bee. If only.

After ending the call, Babette wondered what it would be like walking back into her senior creative writing course after missing six weeks of classes. Was there any other group of students more fragile, more thin-skinned than those who took—haunted– creative writing courses? Would a history major consider—intimate—threaten—to take razor to wrist because a professor handed back a paper elucidating The Influence of the League of Nations on European Colonialism with a grade of C accompanied by a handful of politely critical comments? Did that history professor, be it the sardonic midge Amanda Graves or the demented lizard Stewart Levin, ever fear that one of their students, having gone off the deep end, was going to leap out from the ivied shadows of Rancer Hall with maddened eyes and a sharpened blade glinting in the moon light to kill the critic? Oh, woe.

* * *

Babette used a soccer style kick to launch a piece of ballast off the weathered railroad tie and over the rusty rail. Elaine Greeley, her English Department colleague and frequent walking companion, clapped her hands twice in polite Queen Mother applause. Babette thought that the clapping might be prelude to Elaine talking, but the medieval literature professor maintained her silence as they proceeded on their measured way. Measured? Babette thought the modifier was accurate, but it wasn’t appropriate because Elaine was a long-waisted five foot eight and she herself was short-waisted and just over five feet. Walking ties didn’t feel measured. It felt artificial, constrained, even punitive. In her childhood, that long ago time so rich in poverty, there had been occasions of joyful bouncing from tie to tie while the tops of her dirty spavined socks slipped ever deeper under her heels into the dark, smelly recesses of her older sister Trina’s hand-me-down shoes. A waxy ear held close to a skillet hot rail. The slightly nauseating smell of creosote. Weeds made dusky from the dust manufactured by coal trains fighting their unending battle against inertia. Halcyon days? Brief respites?

That was a lot of flowers. I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a room with so many flowers.

When a brother falls, police and fireman don their dress uniforms and parade. The tradition for attorneys seems to be to send massive floral displays for their fallen brethren. I haven’t been to a lot of services, but when I did go with Bob it always seemed as if there was a surfeit.

Did Bob ever say anything about it? Some old common law or Inns of Court tradition?

Babette considered before she said, I don’t think that is the kind of thing Bob would have noticed.

Some of those … displays … must have cost three or four hundred dollars.

Babette understood that the pause that preceded Elaine’s comment was because her friend was considering whether it was appropriate.

Weddings and funerals. Spend a lot of money on something that only lasts a day or two. I guess it’s like a potlatch. Burn through money to show that you can burn through money. It seems pretty foolish to me. Where I grew up, if you wanted flowers, you grew them or stole them. You didn’t buy them.

Elaine sniggered in a familiar way that Babette knew meant that she was thinking something she didn’t think she was supposed to think. Babette launched another stone deep into the bracken.

What?

I was thinking that despite my penurious upbringing I would much rather have the local lawyers spend thousands of dollars on flowers that will turn to sludge within the week than spend one tenth that sum on plastic flowers that would grace Bob’s grave into the fourth millennium.

Babette turned her head so she could catch Elaine’s eyes.

Do you know they make some that smell?

A smile grew on Elaine’s face as Babette continued, I can see them now, purple plastic phlox, supplanting the blue hockey pucks in the bottom of the nation’s urinals.

Supplanting. Good word choice. Without a pause, Elaine asked, Is there a big hole in you? I shouldn’t ask but I’ve never really lost anyone I’ve loved. My grandparents weren’t piggyback ride-giving, candy-hidden-in-the purse kind of grandparents. And my parents, all seven iterations of them, are still with me. During Bob’s service I kept thinking that here I am a fifty-eight year old woman and all I know of grief, big grief, is from reading Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Karenina ….. Elaine let her words trail off.

Well, I don’t know how to answer that except maybe to say that there has been so much activity that I haven’t had the time to put my finger into the hole to see what size it is and just how much it might hurt.

Babette thought that one of the big reasons she liked Elaine was that, for the most part, she was shallow. In her work, which was mostly concerned with Shakespeare’s contemporaries such as Marlowe and Sidney, Elaine was capable of deep textual mining, but in her life, she mostly kept things on the surface. It didn’t seem to be in Elaine’s nature to have a desperate need to peer behind the curtains into the gloom of a person’s life.

Elaine strayed beyond the confines of the rusty rails to harvest a teazle. As she used it to brush something too small to be seen from the front of her blouse, she continued, Well, if there is a big hole, I hope it heals over fast and clean. Not like those wounds that have to spend time in a hyperbaric chamber.

Babette let Elaine’s words drift behind them as she wondered if she would need a healing chamber and, if so, just how and where it might be found. The possibilities spinning out from that thought held most of the new widow’s attention during the rest of their walk.

When Babette got home later that afternoon, she took one of the three by five index cards she used to make notes for her stories and a black marker. She wrote, Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber, studied her work, flipped the card over and wrote HOC, studied that, considered, then enhanced it with the letters ADD above the HOC. With card in hand, Babette wandered her house, studied the doorways to the living and dining rooms, their bedroom, the bedroom she used when she couldn’t sleep, and the library before taping it to the door she had known all along it would grace—her writing room.

Although Babette was alone in the house, out of habit she closed the door behind her as she went into the paper and furniture-filled room where she wrote. She hesitated between sitting herself down in one of the four damask-seated chairs that were tucked in around the oval Empire-era mahogany dining room table that served as her desk or plopping herself down on a love seat-sized leather couch that she had bought with her first royalty check from