Too Much Happiness

Happy?”
    “Sure. I’ve let go of that stupid self stuff. I think, How can I help? And that’s all the thinking that I allow myself.”
    “Living in the present?”
    “I don’t care if you think I’m banal. I don’t care if you laugh at me.”
    “I’m not-”
    “I don’t care. Listen. If you think I’m after your money, fine. I am after your money. Also I am after you. Don’t you want a different life? I’m not saying I love you, I don’t use stupid language. Or, I want to save you. You know you can only save yourself. So what is the point? I don’t usually try to get anywhere talking to people. I usually try to avoid personal relationships. I mean I do. I do avoid them.”
    Relationships.
    “Why are you trying not to smile?” he said. “Because I said ‘relationships’? That’s a cant word? I don’t fuss about my words.”
    Sally said, “I was thinking of Jesus. ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’”
    The look that leapt to his face was almost savage.
    “Don’t you get tired, Sally? Don’t you get tired being clever? I can’t go on talking this way, I’m sorry. I’ve got things to do.”
    “So have I,” said Sally. It was a complete lie. “We’ll be-”
    “Don’t say it. Don’t say, ‘We’ll be in touch.’”
    “Maybe we’ll be in touch. Is that any better?”
    Sally gets lost, then finds her way. The bank building again, the same or possibly a whole new regiment of loiterers. The subway ride, the parking lot, the keys, the highway, the traffic. Then the lesser highway, the early sunset, no snow yet, the bare trees, and the darkening fields.
    She loves this countryside, this time of year. Must she now think herself unworthy?
    The cat is glad to see her. There are a couple of messages from friends on her machine. She heats up the single serving of lasagna. She buys these separated precooked and frozen portions now. They are quite good and not too expensive when you think of no waste. She sips from a glass of wine during the seven-minute wait.
    Jonah.
    She is shaking with anger. What is she supposed to do, go back to the condemned house and scrub the rotten linoleum and cook up the chicken parts that were thrown out because they’re past the best-before date? And be reminded every day how she falls short of Marnie or any other afflicted creature? All for the privilege of being useful in the life somebody else- Kent -has chosen.
    He’s sick. He’s wearing himself out, maybe he’s dying. He wouldn’t thank her for clean sheets and fresh food. Oh no. He’d rather die on that cot under the blanket with the burned hole in it.
    But a check, she can write some sort of check, not an absurd one. Not too big or too small. He’ll not help himself with it, of course. He’ll not stop despising her, of course.
    Despising. No. Not the point. Nothing personal.
    There is something, anyway, in having got through the day without its being an absolute disaster. It wasn’t, was it? She had said maybe. He hadn’t corrected her.

Free Radicals
    At first people were phoning to make sure that Nita was not too depressed, not too lonely, not eating too little or drinking too much. (She had been such a diligent wine drinker that many forgot she was now forbidden to drink at all.) She held them off, without sounding nobly grief stricken or unnaturally cheerful or absentminded or confused. She said she didn’t need groceries, she was working through what she had on hand. She had enough of her prescription pills and enough stamps for her thank-you notes.
    Her better friends probably suspected the truth-that she was not bothering to eat much and that she threw out any sympathy note she happened to get. She had not even written to people at a distance, to elicit such notes. Not even to Rich’s former wife in Arizona or his semi-estranged brother in Nova Scotia, though they might understand, perhaps better than the people near at hand, why she had proceeded with the non-funeral as she had done.
    Rich had called to her that he was going to the village, to the hardware store. It was around ten o’clock in the morning-he had started to paint the railing of the deck. That is, he was scraping it to prepare for the painting, and the old scraper had come apart in his hand.
    She did not have time to wonder about his being late. He died bent over the sidewalk sign that stood out in front of the hardware store, offering a discount on lawn mowers. He had not even had time to get into the store. He