Alone Beneath the Heavens

Happy anniversary, Bill. 

I'm sitting on the porch staring up at the stars, and the moon is so bright that I don't have to turn on a light to see what I'm writing. I always use your pen when I write to you, did you know that? The gold Cross pen that Dana gave you the year she graduated from high school. That was such a happy Christmas. I can still see the excitement in her eyes as you unwrapped the present; she was so proud to be able to give you something you really wanted but would never buy for yourself. Every time she saw you use it after that, I could see an echo of that pride spark in her eyes. As I write I can feel the engraving, rough against my finger, where Dana had the jeweler write, "Ahab." I can picture your finger feeling it, too. 

Sometimes when I write to you like this, I feel like you're right here with me again. I can see the expressions on your face, hear the tones of your voice, know exactly what you'll say in every conversation I have with you in my head. I know you can see me; I can feel you, sometimes. There are nights when I wake suddenly from a dream of you and I would almost swear your side of the bed wasn't empty... 

Is Melissa laughing at me now? I never used to believe her when she talked to me like that. Oh, well. I don't begrudge her the last laugh. 

I remember once, when you were waxing maudlin the night before you shipped out on a tour, you told me, "Maggie, if anything ever... happens... to me, I want you to marry again. Don't feel like you shouldn't." I sat up in bed and stared at you incredulously for a minute, then said, indignantly, "Of course I'll get married again!" as if there could be no doubt. 

Oh, Bill, I'll never forget the look on your face. It's made me laugh, every time I remembered it, for twenty-five years. Your mouth fell open and your eyes bulged out and I know this isn't very romantic of me to say, but you looked like nothing more than a big, stunned fish, pulled suddenly out of the sea to flop around on deck in a most undignified way. I finally couldn't take it anymore, and the laughter I'd been struggling to suppress bubbled out in a kind of snort. I couldn't help myself. I laughed so hard I couldn't even sit upright, and I kind of fell over onto you. As I fought to breathe through the ache in my stomach I could feel your arms come around me, and your chest shook under me as you fought to keep from waking the children with one of your big bellowing laughs. And we held each other, laughing, until you decided that there were better things to do with our last evening, and we had a different reason to be glad that the kids'rooms were on the other side of the house from ours. And there was no more talk of marrying again. 

There still isn't. 

It's funny, even now I can see the look on your face when you read this, gearing up to argue me out of whatever silly notions of fidelity to the dead I am allowing to rule my life. But it's not like that, Bill, really. I didn't burn my heart to ashes and scatter them over the ocean in some sort of metaphorical suttee. I haven't made a vow to cleave unto your memory and forsake all others until I follow you into death. It's just that you... spoiled me, I guess. Our love was like the sea you sailed on, wide and constant and beautiful. And I won't settle now for a small love or a stingy one. They say that at my age you marry for companionship. Well, I can get a cat to be my companion, Bill. I certainly don't need another man. 

Even now, Bill, I forget you're gone sometimes. I'll be going along, living life, and catch myself thinking that I should try this recipe for you, that you'll roar with laughter at this story, that this sweater is the exact color you always say brings out my eyes. And then my mind catches up with itself, and I slip and fall into the hole you left in me, and I feel your absence with that wincing pervasive ache you get when you eat ice cream on a tooth with a cavity, and it makes your whole head cringe. 

I promised myself I wasn't going to cry. 

At first your absence was a gaping void that pulled and tore at my soul. I know "Romeo and Juliet" is supposed to be this great love story, but I'd always thought Juliet rather a fool; she was young, rich, beautiful and desired. Why didn't she mourn Romeo for a while, then get over him and marry Paris, who was, after all, perfectly nice? But that night at the hospital I remember a moment of startling clarity: "Oh. So this is why." 

I thought that pain would never ease. But humans are resilient creatures; we have to be. And more and more often as time passed I'd forget to miss you. I'd finish some everyday thing I was doing and realize that I had spent a few minutes or an hour or an afternoon without feeling your loss like a bruise on my bones. I felt guilty about it, at first, as though I was invalidating our years together by starting to adapt to being alone. But over time I came to see that it would hurt you more if I allowed our love to be a crippling thing than if I let myself accept-- not its end, never that, but its suspension for a little while. 

I know you're waiting for me, Bill. The only thing that kept me strong, some days, was my faith that we would be together again. I can see it in my daydreams, sometimes; I imagine that one day I'll close my eyes and open them to the sight of you, waiting to scoop me up into one of those hugs of yours that always made me feel like I was floating in your love. And it'll be just like that day when you walked off your ship and into my arms-- except this time it's me who'll be walking into yours, and you'll smell like soap and the sea. 

Maybe St. Peter will play our song. 

Until then, love. 

Your Maggie