How to Talk to a Widower

life, and it will all be thanks to Hailey dying in a plane crash. And I don’t know exactly at what point it will happen, but the time will come when I’ll have crossed this line to where maybe I wouldn’t go back to save her, because I’ll know that if it weren’t for her dying, I wouldn’t have this family I love, and this life I’m living. And the thought of that, of becoming this person who wouldn’t go back to save her … ”
    I mean to say more, but there seems to be a malfunction with my voice, and even though my lips keep moving for a bit, no sound comes out, and goddamn if I don’t feel tears running down my cheeks. Brooke nods and puts her hand on my arm.
    “So,” she says, “you’re having a problem with causality.”
    “I’m obsessed with it,” I say, wiping my damp face with my hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually cry until much later in the movie.”
    She squeezes my arm softly, looking ahead as I get myself back under control. “In a way, it’s actually kind of appropriate, don’t you think?” she says. “I mean, look at it this way: that’s how she stays with you forever, by making sure you’re okay after she’s gone. It’s like emotional life insurance.”
    “Emotional life insurance,” I repeat, mulling it over. “They teach you that in psych school?”
    “I just made it up on the spot,” she says with a grin. “You’ve just borne witness to my twisted brilliance.”
    “It’s pretty good,” I say. “I’ll have to think about that for a while. Thanks.”
    “Don’t mention it.” She gives me a friendly pat before removing her hand, and I can still feel the warm spot on my arm where it had been. “Well, you were right,” she says.
    “That it’s complicated?”
    “No,” she says with a warm smile. “You’re a great responder.”
    I nod. “So, what about you? What’s your sad story?”
    “What makes you think mine is sad?”
    “You’ve already hinted at it more than once. And you have sad eyes.”
    “My fiancé always said they were beautiful.”
    “Your fiancé.”
    “Yup.”
    “And what happened to him?”
    “It’s complicated.”
    “Come on. Fill in the blank. I once had a fiancé but … ”
    But then the lights go down and the previews start, and I can see her gleefully triumphant smile in the glow of the screen. “But we’re out of time,” she says. “I have a strict no-talking policy during the feature. Ask me next week.”
    “How do you know I’ll see you next week?”
    She plucks a single kernel of popcorn from my tub. “Call it a hunch.”
    And we sit there, in an empty movie theater smack in the middle of the workday, elbows bumping lightly on our shared armrest, two people temporarily missing from the world, bathed in the flickering glow of the screen, lost in our own private sorrows as we watch Nicolas Cage save the world.

23

    WHEN I GET HOME, STEPHEN IVES IS ON THE PORCH, trying like hell to break down my front door. He backs up all the way to the porch steps and then charges forward, hitting the door with his shoulder. Judging from his labored breathing and the dark pit stains on his Egyptian cotton dress shirt, he’s been at if for a while already. “Claire!” he yells. “You’re going to talk to me!”
    “Go home, Stephen,” Claire calls from an upstairs window. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
    I look up to see Claire and Russ perched comfortably on the window ledge outside Russ’s old room.
    “Hey, Doug,” Russ says, grinning at me. He’s drinking a Coke and clearly enjoying the show.
    Claire waves tiredly, raising her eyebrows apologetically at me. “He won’t leave.”
    I turn back to Stephen, who is now trying to kick down the door like a cop, but cops don’t wear flimsy three-hundred-dollar dress shoes, which leave nasty crescent-shaped skid marks on my door, but don’t really give much in the way of tactical support.
    “Hey, Stephen,” I say. “What’s new and exciting?”
    “Stay out of this, Doug. I’m warning you,” he snarls, flashing me a menacing frown before throwing another running kick at the door. The usually immaculate Stephen, who dresses like a Hugo Boss ad and generally perspires only in the quilted tennis bubbles and steam rooms of his country club, is a sight to behold. His sweaty hair, thick with gel, hangs in descending spikes over his forehead, making him look like Elvis, not fat Vegas Elvis but skinny movie Elvis after he beats up the bullies in the diner who