The water is almost therapeutic, causing a rhythmic echo as it hits the inside of the sink, reminding me of those drummers in the New York subway making music by hitting the top of a paint bucket. I turn the handle of the faucet to the right, remembering my father’s instruction from when I was a little girl and he’d directed me to turn off the hose that was attached to the Slip’N Slide. Lefty Lucy, righty tighty.
It’s funny the things that stick with you and the things that don’t. Since James’s death, I’m discovering that the mind works in strange ways. I can recall his smell without putting my nose to a single item of his clothing—because I can’t bring myself to. I cannot even look at the sleeve of his crumpled pale-blue button-down shirt peering out from the top of the hamper, but the scent is there, as potent as when I buried my head in his shoulder and breathed him in on our first date, the sake I’d drunk making me brave. His musky aroma is entangled in our bedsheets; it’s emanating off the last bath towel he used. It’s clinging to my nose hairs like my grandmother’s perfume, which she treated like a can of air freshener. It’s a comfort but also a terrible burden, still smelling him. I’ve had moments where I’ve longed for hyposmia—the decreased ability to smell, a definition I only learned because I Googled it at 3:00 a.m. I’d been hugging James’s pillow between my legs like an anchor and smelling him so strongly in the pillowcase that I could almost tell myself he’d just been lying there and had gotten up to go to the bathroom.
His scent assails me, while I try to make sense of remembering only some details about James and not others. Like the way his hands felt. I have no idea. Were they smooth? Calloused? Did I ever take the time to notice? I grabbed Beth’s wrists when she came over this morning, trying to memorize each of her fingers. They felt soft, and as I touched the small scar on her palm from when she’d sliced through it while chopping tomatoes, I promised myself I wouldn’t forget them.
I can’t manage to remember the sound of his laugh. I’ve been trying, the way you do when that actor’s name is on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t spit it out, squinting hard as if the concentration will help me recall it. A few nights ago, after polishing off half a bottle of port—the only alcohol left in the house—I tore through a box of home videos, searching for the one from our wedding. I wanted that moment when, after Tom gave his best-man speech, James let out a belly laugh that rippled through the courtyard of the hotel. It was infectious, that laugh. And now I can’t remember it. And I never did find the video.
James and I had eight years together, but in many ways we hadn’t even made it out of the gate, like a racehorse that gets spooked by the sound of the gun. So many things had held us back. The loss of his job during our first year of marriage that led him to the one he has—had—that forced him to be out of town each week; my arrogance that we could wait years after getting married to start a family.
Which leads me back to the whys. Why did it end before it ever really began? Why were the last words we spoke to each other hostile? Why can’t I forget how he blew past me out of the house and got into the Uber driver’s rusted Toyota Camry without looking over his shoulder? Why can I still feel the way the house trembled after the front door slammed?
He shouldn’t have died. He paid his taxes. He coached Beth’s son’s baseball team. He was thoughtful, once turning the car around to drive twenty minutes when he realized he’d forgotten to tip our server. Why had the knock from two police officers been on my door? Why not on the door of the awful woman from across the street, who once yelled at a group of gap-toothed kids in our neighborhood for placing their lemonade stand too close to her driveway? Why not hers?
After three glasses of sauvignon blanc at James’s memorial, which Beth had planned without my even having to ask, I’d found the courage to ask his boss, Frank, if he knew James had been in Maui. My stomach churned as I studied Frank’s bushy eyebrows and his bloodhound eyes, both wanting and not wanting to know if Frank had been covering for him—that I was the only one not in on the joke. It was incredible how many questions I wanted and didn’t want the answers to. It felt like when I had learned to drive, the instructor jamming the passenger-side brake as I pumped the gas. But Frank shook his head vehemently. He knew only that James had requested a few days off, nothing more than that. And, oh yes, he was so very sorry.
Later that night—after Beth and I had said good-bye to James’s mom, Isabella, and dad, Carlos, my parents, and a few other stragglers—Beth searched the house for clues. (She actually called them that. Like she was starring in a bad episode of Law & Order.) We started with his personal items that had been shipped back to me and arrived the day before. I unzipped his suitcase and sifted through his clothes, pulling out a mix of clean and dirty items, my hand resting on his favorite bathing suit, a pair of red board shorts with a frayed waistband. The same ones he’d worn on our honeymoon. I dug deeper, but there wasn’t so much as a bar receipt. His cell phone and laptop proved to be just as unhelpful—every single password attempt denying me access to the man my husband had been. The thing was, I had naively—or stupidly, I don’t know which at this point—never thought I’d need that access.
CHAPTER FOUR
JACKS—AFTER
Our conversations about where James was going on business always went something like this:
Him: I’m off to Des Moines (or another city name) tomorrow.
Me: Um, hmm. When will you be back?
Him: In a few days. I’ll text you when I land.
Me: Okay. Can you pull the trash cans out before you go?
We were finishing our fettuccini Alfredo when he mentioned the Kansas trip. I looked up from my plate and watched the noodles swirling inside his mouth as he told me he’d be leaving the next morning and would be gone until Saturday. There was a dinner he couldn’t get out of on Friday night. He went on about how the clients were impossible and closing this deal could potentially double his bonus check next quarter. I frowned, mentally canceling the reservations I’d just made at a new Italian spot down the street. Trying to convince myself that maybe the timing was good. I had a ton of prep work to do for the end-of-school-year open house in the fourth grade class I teach. That night was just a week away, and I still had to decide how to display the kids’ essays about their heroes and come up with a creative idea of how to showcase their family-tree projects.
Noticing my face fall, James came around to my side of the table and kissed me softly, and my irritation began to dissolve, as it often did. We fell in and out of arguments easily, like that snap on your shirt that doesn’t quite clasp. You think you’ve finally secured it and then, bam, ten minutes later it’s popped open again.