How to Talk to a Widower

in a minute,” she says to the two waiting kids, who are too busy trying not to exist to care very much one way or another.
    “I’m sorry about the other night,” I say, once we’re seated in her office.
    “There’s no need to apologize for that,” Brooke says.
    “I feel bad.”
    “What you should feel bad about is not calling me these last few days.”
    “I do.”
    “And not returning my calls.”
    “I’m sorry about that too.”
    “And making me feel like an idiot.”
    “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”
    “What happened to your face?”
    “I got into a fight with Jim.”
    “And he hit you?”
    “Actually, Russ hit me.”
    “Russ hit you.”
    “But he meant to hit Jim.”
    “Are you speaking allegorically?”
    “I stepped in the way of his punch.”
    “Ah.”
    “Long story short, Russ is now living with me.”
    Brooke smiles. “Well, that’s good news at least. How do you feel about it?”
    “Strangely okay,” I say. “A little scared. Terrified, actually. But in a good way.”
    “You’ll be fine.”
    “Thanks.”
    We look at each other for a moment. “So, is that what you came to tell me?”
    “No. I came to see how you feel about weddings.”
    “You’re a nice guy, Doug, but I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of commitment.”
    “My sister’s getting married this weekend.”
    “And you need a date.”
    “I don’t need a date. I have Russ and Claire to keep me company. I just thought it would be nice if you came.”
    She sighs, a deep, melancholic, conflicted sigh. “Here’s the thing, Doug. I like you. But I need to know if you’re at that stage where every time we start to get close you’ll panic and pull away, because if you are, that’s fine, I’ll understand. I just don’t want to be a part of the process.”
    “I think I’m done with that,” I say.
    “Just like that?” she says skeptically.
    “Just like that.”
    “Doug.”
    “I mean it.”
    “It’s just way too early for this to be so complicated.”
    “I know.”
    She studies me for a long moment, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. And suddenly it seems vitally important that she say yes. There are alternate fates stretching out before us like a fork in the yellow brick road, and everything that will happen from here on out is predicated on what happens in the next five seconds. And I know I said that fate is a crock, but I’ve been wrong before, and if I believed in God I would offer up a quick little prayer, and say,
God, you have fucked with me enough, and I’m giving you this chance right here to begin making amends,
but I don’t so I can’t, and all there is to do is sit nervously and wait for the moment to end. And the moment is taking its sweet time, is expanding like a big red balloon, and all I can do is sit here and try to look appealing while I wait for it to burst.
    “Doug.”
    “Brooke.”
    She lets out another loud, slow sigh and shakes her head. “I have nothing to wear.”

36

    DEBBIE’S WEDDING WILL BE A FULL-WEEKEND AFFAIR, taking place at the Norwalk Inn and Country Club in Connecticut. Friday night there will be a rehearsal dinner for close friends and family, and Saturday evening there will be a waterfront ceremony at sunset, followed by a lavish reception for five hundred in the main ballroom. It’s the wedding my mother has been planning her entire life. Claire got married on the sprawling grounds of Stephen’s parents’ massive Chappaqua estate—referred to out of earshot by our family as the Golden Horseshit Estate—and Hailey and I decided on a small, informal gathering of friends and family at Tattinger’s, our favorite Manhattan restaurant. My mother suffered these indignities with the perfectly nuanced silence of someone silently suffering an indignity. But for Debbie, her baby, there have been no such complications, and she has pulled out all the stops.
    Friday afternoon, I’m in my bedroom getting dressed for the rehearsal dinner when I feel something in the jacket pocket of my suit and pull out a lipstick cylinder and crumpled receipt. The receipt is from the Hudson Tavern, the restaurant where Hailey and I ate on the last night we ever spent together. And it’s these little things that set you back, that shouldn’t but do, these last, lingering bits of her life lying dormant, waiting to be excavated like artifacts: the smell of her on a shirt, a scribbled shopping list seven pages into the memo pad by the phone, her lipstick tube and