a widower in training

The rain hammered down just out of reach; she stood on the widow's walk, beneath the short umbrella of rooftop, and thought that it was coming down so hard, if she put her hand out, the rain would take it right off. And this ring with it, she thought. A conversation inside of her went like this, all day long: You don't deserve to wear that ring. Yes, I do. He is going to find out and then what? Then what will you do? He loves me. Only until he finds out what you've done. Stop it. I would never hurt him. You say that, but you already have. He just hasn't felt it yet. But he will.

He came up behind her and folded his arms around her chest and she gave a tiny start. He rested his chin on her shoulder, his cheek pressed to hers. Scratchy. Tougher than it had once been. Cut with the striation of years that had taken the long way around a life. "I've missed this," he said. His voice had changed, too. She loved it even more now, the way it sounded like a fireplace grate being drawn shut. Rusty. "The rain, I mean."

She nodded and they stood there watching it fall. The town unfolded beneath them like an elaborate train set, all steeples and perfect green hills and shady trees and wainscoting and shutters. "We could live here," she said. "Wouldn't be so bad." She had been looking at a simple white church that broke from the carpet of cottages, a small bell tower rising up, the whole thing haloed by trees gone orange and yellow. "I keep looking at the church and thinking, maybe that's the one."

Maybe that's the one what, Eleanor? Where God will finally speak up? Tell you how much he's missed you? What's so wrong with that? Nothing, I guess. You always were naive about this. Wake up, you dumb bitch. It's been thirty-five years. I would wait forever if I had to. Oh, trust me. You will.

He didn't say anything. She knew what he was thinking. They couldn't be happy here, couldn't live here. She knew why. But still she liked it here. She had spent the entire morning in conversation with the spindly man who operated the bookshop next to the bed and breakfast. He gave her a well-thumbed volume of poetry before she left, and welcomed her to the town. She didn't correct him.

Maybe he knows already. Maybe you gave it away somehow. Was there a slip of the tongue? He doesn't know. He won't ever know. He'll know, Ellie. And then he'll leave.

Sometimes the voice in her head was her father's, and when it was, it wasn't so bad. Even the most acidic things were softened by his warm, understanding tones. Sometimes the voice was her mother's, and Eleanor would do anything to clutter up her mind, to force the conversation into the background. Junk television was usually enough, but on bad days she would have to get out of the house, find a crowded public place. A shopping mall. A public market. Anywhere with enough static.

But it was always the worst when it was her own voice. She listened to herself; she always had. She took herself seriously when almost nobody else did.

Nobody likes a crazy person. You know I'm not crazy. Nobody except for -- what was his name? It was pretentious as hell, Eleanor. Rudolfo? It was Randolph. Oh, right. Randolph. What a funny name for a man of the cloth. He wasn't a man -- Exactly, Eleanor. How could you be so stu--

Jack dropped his arms. The sudden relaxation of pressure, the abrupt vanishing of his warmth against her back, startled her. She half-turned. He had stepped back, and now leaned against the balcony door frame. "You went away again," he said. She hated the look on his face. It had once been disappointment, an almost childlike put-on intended to thaw her and bring her back to him; she had always played that game, secretly delighted when he lit up at her refocused attention. Jack glowed in those moments when she was in his here and now. But he had known all along that she was more often somewhere else. Eleanor had gone away from him on that August day when they were both teenagers, and she only really came back to visit.

"I'm sorry," she said uselessly.

He looked past her. The rain was falling even harder, tackling leaves from the trees, slinging them to the wet ground. He nodded, unfocused. She looked at the way he stood, arms crossed, neck rigid, jaw set hard. He was getting older. It was harder all the time to see the boy she used to see in his face.

That's your fault, you know. I know it is. Tell him what you did, Eleanor. Tell him and it'll put him out like a cheap candle. I don't want to tell him. You'd rather this go on? You slowly crush the light out of him, day after day, for another twenty-five years? Go away. He loved you, you know. He never loved anybody else. I know. Most people never know that. And you just shit all over it. Go away. You shit all over everybody who loves you. You always have. Why change n--

"I slept with somebody," Eleanor said abruptly, partly to shut the voice out of her head, and partly because, like a cynical uncle at a family reunion, it was usually right. She closed her eyes tightly as she said it, ashamed of herself and afraid to see him leave. But she felt like a coward; she deserved to see him go, to take it like a knife in her heart. So she opened her eyes and stood there, just inside the curtain of rain, watching Jack, who stood there, looking at her.