Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

moment would return to her. “Comfort Ye My People” pierced her throat with starry needles. As if everything about her was recognized then, and honored and set alight.

    Paul Gibbings had not expected trouble from Nina. He had always thought that she was a warm person, in her reserved way. Not caustic like Lewis. But smart.
    “No,” she said. “He wouldn’t have wanted it.”
    “Nina. Teaching was his life. He gave a lot. There are so many people, I don’t know if you understand how many people, who remember just sitting spellbound in his classroom. They probably don’t remember another thing about high school like they remember Lewis. He had a presence, Nina. You either have it or you don’t. Lewis had it in spades.”
    “I’m not arguing that.”
    “So you’ve got all these people wanting somehow to say goodbye. We all need to say goodbye. Also to honor him. You know what I’m saying? After all this stuff. Closure.”
    “Yes. I hear. Closure .”
    A nasty tone there, he thought. But he ignored it. “There doesn’t need to be a hint of religiosity about it. No prayers. No mention. I know as well as you do how he would hate that.”
    “He would.”
    “I know. I can sort of master-of-ceremony the whole thing, if that doesn’t seem like the wrong word. I have a pretty good idea of the right sort of people to ask just to do a little appreciation. Maybe half a dozen, ending up with a bit by me. ‘Eulogies,’ I think that’s the word, but I prefer ‘appreciation’—”
    “Lewis would prefer nothing.”
    “And we can have your participation at whatever level you would choose—”
    “Paul. Listen. Listen to me now.”
    “Of course. I’m listening.”
    “If you go ahead with this I will participate.”
    “Well. Good.”
    “When Lewis died he left a—he left a poem, actually. If you go ahead with this I will read it.”
    “Yes?”
    “I mean I’ll read it there, out loud. I’ll read a bit of it to you now.”
    “Right. Go ahead.”

    “There was a Temple of Learning sat
    Right on Lake Huron shore
    Where many a dull-eyed Dunce did come
    To listen to many a Bore.”

    “Sounds like Lewis all right.”

    “And the King of the Bores was a Right Fine Chap
    Did Grin from Ear to Ear—“

    “Nina. Okay. Okay. I got you. So this is what you want, is it?
    Harper Valley P.T.A.?”
    “There’s more.”
    “I’m sure there is. I think you’re very upset, Nina. I don’t think you’d act this way if you weren’t very upset. And when you’re feeling better you’re going to regret it.”
    “No.”
    “I think you’re going to regret it. I’m going to hang up now. I’m going to have to say goodbye.”

    ‘Wow,” said Margaret. “How did he take that?”
    “He said he was going to have to say goodbye.”
    “Do you want me to come over? I could just be company.”
    “No. Thanks.”
    “You don’t want company?”
    “I guess not. Not right now.”
    “You’re sure? You’re okay?”
    “I’m okay.”
    She was really not so pleased with herself, about that performance on the phone. Lewis had said to her, “Be sure you scotch it if they want to bugger around with any memorial stuff. That candy-ass is capable of it.” So it had been necessary to stop Paul somehow, but the way she had done it seemed crudely theatrical. Outrage was what had been left up to Lewis, retaliation his specialty—all she had managed to do was quote him.
    It was beyond her to think how she could live, with only her old pacific habits. Cold and muted, stripped of him.

    Some time after dark Ed Shore knocked on her back door. He held a box of ashes and a bouquet of white roses.
    He gave her the ashes first.
    “Oh,” she said. “It’s done.”
    She felt a warmth through the heavy cardboard. It came not immediately but gradually, like the blood’s warmth through the skin.
    Where was she to set this down? Not on the kitchen table, beside her late, hardly touched supper. Scrambled eggs and salsa, a combination that she’d always looked forward to on nights when Lewis was kept late for some reason and was eating with the other teachers at Tim Horton’s or the pub. Tonight it had proved a bad choice.
    Not on the counter either. It would look like a bulky grocery item. And not on the floor, where it could more easily be disregarded but would seem to be relegated to a lowly position—as if it held something like kitty litter or garden fertilizer, something that should not come too close to dishes and