Young Widower (9 page)

A large group of Peace Corps volunteers came to Katie’s funeral. They arrived, on a few days’ notice, from everywhere, moving in a group, friendly with Katie’s family, friends, and each other. I loved that they were there and that they knew Katie as someone particular, in a particular place, that had nothing to do with Antioch, Illinois. They filled the second room with a love, sympathy, nostalgia, and feeling that was entirely my own. Here was my tribe. I was so grateful for it.

As the night went on, I went less and less often into the first room. A friend brought out a guitar. Another passed a bottle of whiskey under the table—Katie’s favorite, Johnnie Walker—as another friend poured from it into our soda glasses. We sang and cried, or I would sing and someone else would cry, as though we were taking turns, and though it wasn’t happiness, it felt like hap
piness. Winnowing joy from the day. We ordered shots and beers and mixed drinks until we were snowed under. The room was emptying out, and it was last call. Most of Katie’s family had left the restaurant hours earlier. Ed had stuck around, and we played a few songs, but we could not really follow each other. One of us was always leading and calling out the chords.

Then, it was time to go home. We stumbled into the parking lot and stood a moment by the car, saying goodbye to the Peace Corps group, most of whom disappeared down the street to the nearby hotel.

Man
, Ed said, when we were alone.
Those people
really
liked Katie
.

I laughed.

Oh, Ed
, I said,
she couldn’t stand those people. They’re here for me
.

Flush

1.

I received the balance of Katie’s life insurance paid four times: spouse’s death (accidental), spouse’s death (abroad), dismemberment and death (bear), traumatic death (bear, spouse). It was enough money to settle the bills from the funeral, to cover the costs of settling into Indiana, and to buy a car. I would live for a year, support myself, and not work. I could grieve without distraction.

The need to grieve in concrete terms, with particular goals, had been made urgent by the regional embassy psychiatrist in Romania. We talked for two hours in Bucharest three days after Katie’s death. His office was temporary and sparse, a windowless closet
in the back room of the embassy basement. He worked there once, he explained, maybe twice a month. He had flown in on special assignment after the report of Katie’s death, to meet me, to offer comfort, and to make an assessment.

Was I well enough to leave the country?

To whom might I pose a risk if I did?

He said all of this up front, with a friendly manner, insisting we should be very clear about our purposes that afternoon. His purposes as a psychiatrist and my purposes as both survivor and widower. The psychiatrist had a full beard and wore white sneakers. He spoke in the very general terms of consolation—
all right, now, nature, breathing
—even as his process must have followed a very particular method.

I told him my purposes were practical and narrow. I needed to travel with Katie’s body back to Illinois. I wanted him to know that I was fine because the bear had not attacked me. I said that I did worry about Sara and the Romanian, but especially the Romanian, with whom no one had spoken since the attack. Did he get his rabies shots? Was he injured still? Could he afford a doctor? Someone needed to talk to him, to let him know that Sara and I were okay; we had survived and received medical attention. We had come down the mountain with Katie’s body. I didn’t want the Romanian to think that we had just disappeared or just left him there. That we weren’t concerned for his well-being. We had had no choice that morning but to leave. There had been detectives; it was morning. We could probably get the Romanian the medical help he needed through our embassy, I explained, and that was important. Hadn’t I already mentioned doing so several times to people at the embassy and Katie’s office? I would call him myself, but there was no record of his last name or phone number.

I told the psychiatrist that I had stayed awake with Katie’s body the whole night, and wasn’t it a kind of accomplishment because who really does that anymore—hike all day, not sleep, and still
function the next day—just as, really, it was no surprise that later, after we arrived in Bucharest, the embassy nurse had me over for a late lunch and to do a general physical examination. I had said that to her that I felt fine, even though I had not stayed up all night. Probably, when she examined me, I had seemed agitated and unsure of myself. I was tired. I had been running on adrenaline all day and night and day again, and while it was nice to talk with someone, I understood my purposes and needed to be on my way.

There was not a scratch on my body, I explained to the nurse, because the bear did not attack me. The bear had killed Katie. Sara and the Romanian had survived the attack, but I had stood at a distance.

At the nurse’s house, I took a shower. I was starting to feel tired, and it seemed the right thing to do. Regroup. Refresh. Perk up a little. I stepped under the hot water, and immediately, though I was not certain, I thought that I heard, behind my head, in the next room a tick, a methodical clicking, like the tap inside a drain, a metallic whirring of a machine winding down: that was what it sounded like. When the click stopped, it made a silence in the bathroom I was terrified to interrupt. I stood under the water until I was sure I could move. I felt very still then. I counted my breaths and closed my eyes. I took a towel down and tried to scream into it, but instead I was sick. I leaned into the glass a moment, and when I turned off the water, I could hear people talking in the next room.

Wasn’t I making this all up, I thought to myself; this feeling of uncertainty, this need for attention; this strange and clear center I was already claiming, from which I could not step away without worrying I would fall off the Earth?

I am fine now, I told the embassy psychiatrist, but I had sure had quite a shock. It helped to have pills from the nurse. She gave them
to me after I got out of the shower, after I cleaned myself up and we talked. In the bathroom I had seen, through the mirror, my clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor. They were the only clothes I had with me, and after the shower I had to put them back on. It seemed stupid that I had gone to all of that trouble to shower, only to wear the same clothes again. The sleeves and pant legs were caked in mud. The t-shirt was rank and salted with sweat. My socks were stretched at the ankle and loose around the toe.

Sitting with me on the sofa, the nurse said I should take the pills if I felt overwhelmed or needed to sleep, but she wanted me to talk to the psychiatrist. I wanted to ask her,
How overwhelmed? How would I know when it was time to take the pills?
What would it mean to need them?
I did not want to impose on her by asking too many questions; perhaps, if I did, she would wise up and not give me any medication. She might think I was using the occasion of Katie’s death to score some grade-A pills, and then I’d really be stuck. No pills. No silence. No sleep.

The white pills
, I told the psychiatrist,
worked at night like magic
. That morning I had taken two yellow pills, and the world now slowed enough so I could follow it. I could breathe. I didn’t feel like myself, I said, but I didn’t feel so afraid or confused as I had that night on the mountain, then in the car coming down the mountain, in the hospital with Sara, and later again at the nurse’s home.

I was fine, I told the psychiatrist; my goals had to do with Katie. Her body. I needed to get Katie home to Judy. I needed to claim Katie’s body from the undertaker and arrange for its transportation to Illinois before it went lost or missing. Judy should see Katie’s body, and soon. I had heard a story about an American’s body disappearing at the morgue and turning up years later in a museum, dressed in Soviet kitsch. I smiled at my joke, and then I felt great shame to be crying, in great heaves and sobs; I felt ashamed for making myself weak in front of this stranger and also disappointment that I was so unoriginal, unexceptional, and uncontrolled
that I could not keep things together even for this meeting, this preliminary discussion, this test I needed to pass in order to leave Romania, to claim Katie’s body and fly back home.

I feel safe with Katie
is what I should have said.

If Katie were with me in the room, I should have told the nurse, then she would tell me what to do next. I wouldn’t need to ask the embassy nurse for pills, or the embassy psychiatrist for help, or anyone why, since Katie’s death, I had felt in such equal parts fear and excitement, even at night, as I fell asleep in a haze of narcosis and panic, uncertain how I might keep myself safe and protected for the seven hours I would not be conscious.
Katie kept me safe
, I thought, and though I knew this was sentimental, it was also true.

The embassy psychiatrist handed me a box of tissues and waited a moment. First, he said, my relationship with nature would be very different now. Something very similar had happened to him, and he had eventually come through, but it had taken time. It was not easy, but it was possible. Second, he said, probably I would not be all right for some time, if ever. And this was okay. I might recover enough to live, but I would never be the same person from a few days ago. I had been through quite a shock. My life would have
an integrity
—I remember this phrase exactly—but it wouldn’t be the integrity I had taken up the mountain.

Third, he said, and this was very important, I should focus on leaving Bucharest as quickly and efficiently as possible. I should go to Katie’s funeral, grieve with Katie’s family and my own, and see my way to the end of the rite. Things would be easier for a while because there would be so much to do, but when things slowed down later, I should go see somebody. I should talk with a professional about what had happened. Above all I should do everything in my power to take care of myself. If I didn’t, he warned, then I would not be all right.

2.

A few times it seemed likely I would not receive any life insurance payout after Katie’s death. Katie had initially declined the policy, even though it was provided for free, as part of her work’s benefits package. The paperwork, Katie said, was too extensive and exhausting to complete. She thought it was easier to ignore the form than to submit to the required physicals, blood tests, medical records, and statements of exemption. Now, her initial refusal was a red flag for fraud review on the claim. The situation of Katie’s death was so extraordinary as to possibly warrant no coverage:
Act of God
, born of our poor judgment to hike into a mountain wilderness, across a well-known bear habitat. We had willed ourselves into a potentially fatal situation, the insurance agent explained. She handled this explanation so tactfully, and with such sympathy, that I did not really understand it until we were off the phone. A second agent that week called to clarify both the question and my answer. Had Katie and I, he asked, known we were hiking into a natural place where there were sure to be wild bears?

Thank you so much for your kind donation in Katie’s memory to the Independence Center
. It was a simple sentence. I wrote it seventy-four times on a cream card. I folded each card neatly inside an unsealed white envelope. I stuck a bright blue stamp in each corner. I thought of the route I had flown home from Romania, over the Antarctic: blue ice, white ocean. I remembered standing in security at Heathrow Airport, waiting for a tight connection, and screaming at the agent that I was accompanying my dead wife’s body home and he should
let me into the fucking express lane to get on my fucking plane
.

Already I was aware saying such things might grant me certain advantages.

Two weeks after Katie’s funeral, I sat at the kitchen table in Indiana. I was moved into the house now, and my bags were stored
away. In front of me I managed a yellow legal pad filled with names and addresses. I called my parents and friends, and Katie’s family, to coordinate acknowledgments. We were thanking everyone who had made a donation, in lieu of flowers, to the assisted-living facility where Katie’s brother lived at the end of his life. Now, I had only to seal the envelopes and walk them to the post office.

The legal pad was ticked with finished and unfinished tasks. I called the bank and informed them of Katie’s death. I requested that Katie’s name be removed immediately from various accounts, that our joint credit cards be canceled, and that a new card be issued only in my name. Fraud after a death was common, the bank explained, and I should take a few simple steps to protect myself. I received in the mail an embossed folder outlining each step on heavy blue card-stock. The Social Security office processed its one-time payment; there was a more elaborate option, which might have yielded a larger payout, but I did not want to bother with it.

I contacted the State Department to request certificates of death in Katie’s name. The certificates were notarized official copies, registered by the government. I gave them to former employers, banks, alma maters, insurance companies. Each time I altered some record of my continuing life by removing Katie from it. I ticked “Widowed” after “Married” and, where it did not apply, “Single.” I made new piles of envelopes on the chair, with rolls of stamps and several pens.

From the insurance company I received all manner of warning about the vulnerability of widowed spouses, the ways in which even my own bank might prey on my bad judgment and guilt, the newspaper notices of deaths by which predators would pretend to have known Katie. The photographs on these brochures were of seniors, often women, sitting near windows in reclining chairs. I thought of the self-help aisle in the bookstore. The iconography of widowhood was again distinct and expressly excluded the young. Testimonials that consoled the death of a spouse—peace of mind,
medical bills, inheritance claims—said little about the angst and worry of continuing to live for a very long time.

Would the insurance company make good on its check? Might someone steal the check en route? What if the check was mailed to the wrong John Evans?

I worried someone might contest the payment on the grounds that I had facilitated Katie’s death in order to receive the paid benefit. No one could prove it, not really, but wouldn’t there be a lawsuit, legal representation, courtrooms, judges?

Whatever money I received, I decided, I should give immediately to Katie’s family. I was being compensated for Katie’s death, so surely the compensation was not mine exclusively. Rather, it belonged to everyone. I would divide the check into portions and pay it out to each family member. I wouldn’t say it outright, but they might infer that the money should in some way ease their sadness and so, perhaps, some of the obligation that followed after Katie’s death. It might even work out to enough money that they would feel indirectly if genuinely pleased. It might make a difference in their lives, and they might feel some gratitude for the consideration. Who knew, it might even bind us together in the coming years: an obligation, an act of generosity so selfless we would have to love each other or at least keep in touch.

The check came in the mail six weeks after Katie’s death, in quadruplicate, in a clear-windowed envelope, on a piece of perforated paper with a watermark. I received a sum of tax-free money greater than what Katie and I had earned together in the three years since we left Chicago. I deposited the check immediately, and a few days later it cleared. I was flush. As part of my daily ritual, I monitored the account, making a comprehensive record of every expense—grocery store, coffee shop, movie rental shop, and lunch out with the nieces—that drew it down. I calculated the interest of the savings account and wondered whether it might keep ahead of daily expenses and, if so, then for how long.