How to Talk to a Widower

says sardonically, fixing me with a dour stare. “Come on, Douglas, we have no secrets in this family.”
    I laugh. “We have a truckload of secrets in this family.”
    “No, we have lies. Families need lies. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to look at each other anymore. But trust me, there are no secrets.”
    On the television, a hopped-up Leno whines through his monologue like he’s been sucking helium.
    “I thought you hated Leno,” I say.
    “I’m sitting on the clicker.”
    I reach over and turn off the television. “So,” I say. “What brings you here?”
    She gently brushes some of Claire’s hair off her face. “Claire needed to talk.”
    “She called you?”
    “Is that really so hard to believe?” she snaps, offended. “She’s going through a lot right now, and she wanted her mother.”
    “No. I’m sure she did.”
    She looks down fondly at Claire. “The poor girl hasn’t slept in days. She’s always internalized her stress like that, ever since she was a little girl. And when it gets really bad, this is the only way she can fall asleep. I used to come to her apartment in the city, and then to her and Stephen’s house. I know how to talk her down.”
    “I never knew that.”
    “Well, then, it’s official. You don’t know everything.”
    I lean back in my chair and close my eyes, feeling sad and guilty about too many things to quantify. “I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t mean to be like this.”
    She looks back up at me. “You don’t have to apologize to me. You’re my little boy. Just be a little kinder. You don’t have the market cornered on heartbreak, you know.”
    “I know.”
    “Good. Now be an angel and freshen my drink.”
    I lift up the empty bottle and turn it over. “I think you’ve had enough.”
    “And I think I just told you to be kinder.”
    “Are you spending the night?”
    “I’ll go home at dawn. If your father doesn’t see me first thing in the morning, he becomes disoriented.”
    “You’ll be exhausted.”
    “I’ll nap in the afternoon. It’s good practice for the nursing home.”
    She closes her eyes. In the darkened room, her wrinkles are gone, and she looks like my mother again, the woman who would lie in my bed at night and tell me stories that always began, “When I was young and beautiful … ” And I would always interrupt on cue and say, “You still are,” and she would kiss my nose and say, “So just imagine what I looked like back then.” And then, after the stories she would sing me to sleep with show tunes. Sometimes I still hear her singing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” as I’m drifting off to sleep. And now she’s dozing on the couch of her widower son after rocking her divorcing daughter to sleep, before running home to make sure her demented husband doesn’t trash the house in a panic.
    “Mom,” I say hoarsely, shaking my head.
    She opens her eyes. “It’s okay, Douglas.”
    “It’s not okay.”
    “It’s life, that’s all. There are no happy endings, just happy days, happy moments. The only real ending is death, and trust me, no one dies happy. And the price of not dying is that things change all the time, and the only thing you can count on is that there’s not a thing you can do about it.”
    “I’m sorry we all turned out like this,” I say. “It must hurt you.”
    She shrugs. “If it were all so easy, no one would ever need me, and then what would I do for attention?”
    “It’s always about you, isn’t it?”
    “Life’s a stage, and I’m the star of the show.”
    “You want me to make you up a bed?”
    “Just bring me a blanket, I’m going to stay right here,” she says, looking back down at Claire with so much tenderness that I have to look away. “And, Douglas?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Don’t forget about my wine.”

29

    WORD THAT THE TOWN WIDOWER HAS BEGUN TO date spreads like a virus, and soon my machine is filled with messages from friends and neighbors calling to tell me about divorced and widowed women I simply have to meet, single sisters and cousins I would just love. Claire ruthlessly narrows down the field by first deleting any messages that don’t meet her criteria, and then by making terse follow-up phone calls asking for ludicrously elaborate physical descriptions, accompanying photos, and detailed relationship histories.
    “I’m just trying to avoid any hurt feelings down the road. Now you’ve got my e-mail address. We’ll talk after I see the pictures.”
    “You’ve