How to Talk to a Widower

Wednesday, September 27, 2006
    Subject: No Thanks

    Sorry, Kyle. I’m just not up for it.
    —D

    From:
[email protected]
    To:
[email protected]
    Date: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
    Subject: Play the Hand You’ve Been Dealt

    For fuck’s sake, Doug! An auction! Remember all those years of shopping around one proposal after another? You would have given your left nut for this kind of opportunity!
    —K

    From:
[email protected]
    To:
[email protected]
    Date: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
    Subject: That Was Then

    This is now. Please leave me alone.
    —D

    From:
[email protected]
    To:
[email protected]
    Date: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
    Subject: Strategy

    Okay, you’re playing hard to get. I like it. But just remember, you can only do it for so long. We need to make a deal soon.
    —K

    From: S
ystem Administrator
    To:
[email protected]
    Date: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
    Subject: Undeliverable

    Your e-mail did not reach the intended recipient. Your e-mail address [[email protected]] has been listed as a blocked address by this recipient.

16

    CLAIRE WAKES ME UP FROM A SWEET DREAM IN the later part of the morning. It was nothing too intricate, just Hailey and me driving somewhere, colored leaves rushing past us in an orange blur, listening to the radio. It’s always autumn in my dreams. She was talking to me, and even though I heard her in the dream, I can’t recall a single word or the tone of her voice. I lie in bed, feeling the emptiness take hold, the now familiar weight in my belly, the darkness hanging in the back of my mind. There’s always this moment, when I first wake up, these precious seconds where I feel like me, the me before this one, and then lucidity sets in and the desolation pours into me, dark and viscous, like crude oil. I close my eyes and try to will myself back to sleep, back to Hailey, but the consciousness is electric, spreading through my body at the speed of light, and there will be no turning it off.
    “Come on,” Claire says. “Open your eyes.”
    I roll over to find her sitting Indian style at the foot of my bed, just like old times. Her designer sweat suit is a bright emerald green that actually hurts my eyes. “What time is it?” I say.
    “Ten thirty-three. I made you some breakfast, but then I ate it. Sorry.”
    “It’s okay,” I say. “I’m not big on breakfast.”
    “It’s the most important meal of the day,” she says brightly.
    I close my eyes and groan. “Can you come back later?”
    “No. Wake up!” She pulls off my comforter.
    “That’s it,” I say. “I think we need to lay down some house rules.”
    “Right. Because rules actually mean something to me.”
    I sit up groggily against the headboard. “What do you want, Claire?”
    “Well, first off, I want you to put your soldier back into the fort.”
    “What? Oh. You’re the one who pulled off the blanket,” I say, straightening my boxers.
    “Good point,” she says, tossing it back to me. “Now, are you ready?”
    “For what?”
    She flashes a wide, talk show host smile. “For the rest of your life!” She looks at me expectantly.
    “What are you babbling about?”
    “Okay, Doug. Here’s the way I see things,” she says, pointedly patting her stomach. “Over the next little while, I am going to be creating an entirely new human being in here. Not only that, but I am going to do it with almost no conscious effort, right? So if I can build a completely new life in nine months with my eyes closed, I figure that we can rebuild your life in the same amount of time by focusing on it.”
    I look up at her. “It’s as simple as that.”
    Her eyes are wide and unyielding. “As simple as you want it to be.”
    “I don’t know what I want.”
    She nods. “And that’s the beauty of having a twin who knows you better than you know yourself. I can know for you. If you needed a kidney or a liver transplant, I’d be your best bet, because inside we’re the same. I’m just applying the same principle. I’m going to give you some of my heart to use until yours starts beating again.”
    “So what is it that you’re proposing, exactly?”
    “That you trust me completely, and agree to do whatever I say.”
    “Naturally.”
    “I’m serious, Doug. You’re so busy mourning Hailey, you don’t have time to think about anything else. But rationally, you know you have to start living again. So do the smart