Chapter 30 #2
Bob could see he meant it. There was empathy in his eyes, a mute pain like an echo of Bob’s own. Bob could only wonder at the arbitrary way empathy was distributed among humans.
“Alice is a psychologist, and she persuaded me to see various professionals who specialized in grief management. They all said the same thing: that experience shows that grief like this often leads to divorce; that it was important to give each other space and not apportion any blame. Of course, none of this was new to Alice, she explained the mechanisms involved to me, described in detail what typically happens to a young couple who lose their only child. We knew. And yet still we didn’t manage to stop a single thing from happening.
The exhaustion. The apathy. The silence.
The outbursts of rage one person feels when they think they’re being blamed by the other person.
Because of the guilt you feel. Hatred for the other, because you feel they share the guilt.
Alcohol. Rejection. We completely forgot that we loved each other, we dragged ourselves along with this millstone of grief around our necks that was pulling us both down.
Just the sight of each other at the breakfast table was a reminder of what had happened.
Neither one of us would let the other forget, because forgetting, escape from the pain the other felt, would be a betrayal.
Until in the end we just couldn’t take it anymore. ”
“So the reason wasn’t that she found someone else?”
“Oh yes. But…she threw me out first.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“About what?”
“That she threw you out?”
“Why wouldn’t I be sure about that?”
Mike shrugged.
Bob felt the metallic tang of blood in his mouth—he hadn’t even noticed that he’d bitten his tongue.
“Maybe she didn’t say it in so many words, but she froze me out. Wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t touch me. So I took the consequences. I packed my bag and I left.”
“So you were the one who left?”
“What? No.”
“No?”
“No! She could have phoned and asked me to come back. But she didn’t.”
“I see.”
“Okay, she did call. Twice. At the most. Directly afterward. But my life right then was just a chaotic mess and I…I needed it to be, I guess. When I began to get things sorted out and started remembering all the good times we’d shared I got in touch with her.
But she told me she’d met this guy, Stan.
Stan the Man. It was only a matter of a few months, remember.
So…” Bob had located the wound in his tongue and pressed it hard against the back of his teeth. “…in my book, she had the last word.”
“This Stan…”
“A guy who works with Alice. Psychologist. I talked to someone I’d gotten to know a bit there and he figured Stan had been interested in her for a long time.
I guess he was just waiting for his chance.
He claims to be a researcher, but I checked out a couple of articles he published and I wasn’t impressed. ”
“But do you think they love each other?”
“Love?” Bob spat it out as though it was a dirty word.
But the rushing in his head didn’t come.
Instead he thought about it, discovering as he did so that if he put the wound on his tongue between his teeth and clamped down hard on it, the pain brought tears to his eyes.
“Maybe. I guess so. Yes, they probably do.”
“Then why are you so angry with her? You were the one who left, and I’m guessing you weren’t exactly celibate once you were gone.”
“Not exactly, no.”
“So maybe you’re not really angry because she found someone else but because she’s happy. And since your daughter’s death you feel she has no right to be.”
“You think so?”
“It’s not really my business, Bob, but you gave the explanation yourself. That the two of you were bound together by this millstone, that neither one could accept that the other could somehow cut themselves free.”
Bob kept thinking. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had similar thoughts himself, but it was the first time he’d ever heard them spoken aloud.
“You who spend so much time talking to people who’ve lost something they loved,” said Bob. “Tell me something, are we all insane?”
Mike Lunde stood up straight and pulled off his gloves. “Oh, but it’s not just people who’ve lost something they love.”
“It isn’t?”
“Take a look around,” said Mike as he lifted off his apron. “Insanity is the norm.”
Bob nodded. “Amen to that.”
“I’m done here for today. Where do you live?”
“Phillips.”
“I can drive you.”
—
Bob had protested, but Mike pointed out that Phillips was just down the street, and that anyway it was more or less on his route. His car was a Chevrolet Caprice station wagon, 1995 model, with the characteristic imitation wood paneling on the sides.
“I know it’s ugly,” Mike said. “But at least not as ugly as the ’85 model.”
“The one that looks like they chopped off the rear end of the car and welded on a crate?”
“That’s the one!”
They talked a little more about cars and where Mike lived, in Chanhassen, a comfortable suburb on the southwest side of town where folks trimmed their lawns and pushed thermometers into the ground in fall so they’d know when the temperature fell below forty-four and the grass wouldn’t grow anymore.
And about Prince, the musician who had died a few months earlier.
“You ever meet him?” asked Bob as Mike drove through the nighttime stillness of the streets.
“You didn’t see much of him, he ran on a different clock from most people in Chanhassen.
And Paisley Park, where he lived and worked, looked like a factory right there next to the freeway, you didn’t exactly stop by to say hi.
I went to a couple of the free neighborhood concerts he gave there, but the only time I talked to him was actually at a Vikings game. ”
“You spoke to Prince?”
“We were both guests of a satisfied customer of mine with a private box at the stadium. Prince was polite, but he didn’t say much. I think he was a shy man. But he said he kept pigeons, and he had a cat.”
“What was he like?”
“I don’t know, Bob.”
“But did he seem…happy?”
Mike considered this. “He seemed lonely. You a fan?”
Bob nodded. “Alice and I kissed the first time to ‘Purple Rain.’ ”
Mike hesitated. “Not that it’s any of my business, Bob…”
“Come on.”
He smiled that half smile again. “If you really could get Alice back, are you so sure that’s what you want?”
“What are you talking about? It’s all I ever think about.”
“I get that. But as it says in one of Aesop’s fables, be careful what you wish for. Nothing’s changed, Bob. That millstone, it’s still there.”
“Sure. But it won’t always be there.” He looked at Mike. “Will it?”
Mike shrugged. “You’ve seen those animals in my store.
They fade a little, but they don’t disappear.
Just ask Tomás Gomez. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m really doing my customers a favor by stuffing the things they love.
My job is to freeze memories, preserve them in solid form.
But there’s something unhealthy about it.
You don’t move on. I can see it in my customers: they’re frozen themselves, they’re stuffed themselves, you know? ”