The After Wife Read online

  “Accident,” my voice is saying.

  Next Best Friend Aimee rushed in, click-click-click, boot heels and keys and big jangly purse. “Motherfuck, baby—motherfuck—”

  She climbs into my bed, too. She smells like an exotic bird.

  My Third (and last—I promise) Best Friend Jay is lifting me out of bed. He hasn’t bothered shaving. Jay hasn’t appeared unshaven since a long-ago Halloween, where he dressed as a scruffy Al Pacino. He holds me, basically carries me to the car. Somehow, we make our way to Santa Monica Hospital. Somehow, we find the room, below ground level, where John lies, waiting. But he’s not waiting. He’ll never wait for me again. Somehow, I manage to identify his body. He is still warm. He looks … perfect. Perfect. His brain, inside his skull, broken.

  “But … there’s nothing wrong with him,” I say to the man wearing glasses, dressed in white. We are surrounded by white—white walls, white slabs, white floors. Are we in heaven? (It’s cold as hell.)

  “I’m sorry,” I say, apologizing, but for what? Tears make it hard for me to talk. My throat is closing up. Jay is holding me up, his arms literally around my waist, as though I’m a puppet. I’ll collapse if he lets go.

  “I don’t understand. He looks perfect,” I say. “John? John?”

  John is unmarked, but the brain is like that. Fragile. One blow directly to the back of the head. Intraparenchymal hemorrhage. I learn this term. I know it so well, I can spell it backward. Bleeding within the brain tissue.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I say. I’m apologizing again.

  “I’m sorry,” the man says. We are polite with each other, as though we are both mistaken.

  “I can’t leave him here,” I say. “It’s too cold. Can I take him home now?”

  Jay pulls me away from the white room with the white slabs.

  This is the last time I see John.

  Until the next time.

  3

  September Mourning

  “This is what we’re going to do, my angel,” Jay, my partner and first call in joy and tragedy, said. Sadness looked spectacular on him, with his tall, lanky frame, white-blond hair, and cheekbones for days. We were ensconced in my closet, which, prior to today, had been our favorite hideaway, our place to share a glass of wine, analyze shoes, bitch about work and his train wreck of a love life.

  Jay sank down next to me in his gunmetal Tom Ford suit and stroked my hair. “Uncle Jay’s putting the ‘fun’ back in funeral,” he murmured.

  Jay had called the rabbi. Jay made all “the arrangements” as per Jewish custom. Jay had called John’s father in New York to tell him his beloved son had died. Jay held me for two nights as I screamed and cried, as my knees and hands shook uncontrollably, as I clutched my stomach and threw up, so many times there was nothing but bile, then so many times there was nothing at all. I wept through Jay’s crisp new Prada shirt, ruining it with yesterday’s mascara. I dug my nails into his skin, begging him to get John back here, NOW. I heard him, from the next room, as he entertained Ellie, telling her Mommy wasn’t feeling well. I heard him pause when she asked for Daddy.

  “Come here, Ellie,” he said, his voice cracking, “Uncle Jay needs a hug.”

  And Jay insisted on dressing me for John’s funeral. I was too weak to resist his styling overtures. Payback for ruining a Prada shirt is a bitch.

  “Here’s what I’m visualizing,” he said to the heap on the floor. That would be me. This was the first time I’d seen him in the last three days without Ellie attached to his hip.

  “Elizabeth Taylor at Mike Todd’s funeral,” Jay said, then put his hand to his chest. “It’s going to be hard, I’m not going to lie to you, but I think we can pull off the bouffant—dream big, darlings.”

  We weren’t alone. A petite blonde clutching a bundle of sage shook her hand; her Buddhist bracelets (or Hindu? I can never remember what religion bracelets are) stirred. Chloe Clybourne Lew wore an Indian prayer shawl and a floor-length tie-dyed silk dress, with no discernible makeup on a face Avedon would have stood in line to photograph. We’d been very close since my first official day of pregnancy in Dr. Scofield’s office. Now she was not having it. “Bouffant is another word for cancer. You know, of course, that hairspray causes global warming and birth defects.” In the background, I heard dogs barking and whining at my back door. Chloe had not arrived unattended; rescue dogs were her gay male escorts. She took them everywhere.

  “Birth defects?” I asked. This didn’t sound right.

  “Babies don’t even have hair,” Jay sniffed.

  “The science is right there on my blog,” Chloe said.

  “Whatever. I’m not going to let the planet get between my girl and her ’do,” Jay said.

  Chloe was tirelessly concerned for everyone’s welfare—stray dogs, Planet Earth, the homeless, Darfur, and me. And would not let any of us forget it. Even after her husband, Billy the Asian Republican, lost his investment banking job, she had to be reminded to stop writing thousand-dollar checks to Doctors Without Borders or the American Cancer Society, as if the checks were parking change.

  I met Chloe the day I learned I was pregnant. Seven months along, she was Westside P.C. from her Bolivian peasant blouse to her sandals made in a women’s shelter in Kenya to her almond-eyed children, who had jumped out of the Benetton catalog and were reading, drawing, and occasionally questioning Chloe in their “obstetrician voices.” I watched them, in awe. I watched her, in awe. People like this did not exist.

  “How many do you have?” she’d asked me.

  “How many what?”

  “Children,” she said, looking at me cradling my tummy, as though keeping safe whatever was in there. “Which number is this?”

  “Kids? Oh, I don’t have any kids,” I said. “You’re looking at a miracle.” Since John, my whole life had become a miracle. I had a warm, sweet home, a man who loved me. And now … a baby. Me.

  Little did I know, I had just become Chloe Clybourne Lew’s latest Very Special Project.

  “Jay, drop the teasing comb,” Chloe said. As Jay’s eyes pleaded with me, we heard a click-click-click … and Angelina Jolie’s slightly used older sister rushed in on five-inch heels, smelling of cigarettes and drinks with a Romanian spy in a Parisian bistro.

  “I feel like shit,” Aimee Le Fleur said. “How’s my girl?” In her fishnet tights, diamond stud earrings from Disappointed Suitor, Spring 1996, and sleek black dress, she looked like Ms. Jolie working undercover. In other words, impossible to miss.

  I’d met Aimee a hundred years ago, when I was a young buck casting assistant and she was a young buck actress. She came in to read, and I demanded to know where she got her shoes. She demanded a callback, and she would tell me. A draw. We both won. She nailed the gig, and her shoe size is the same as mine, so I borrow what I can’t buy.

  “Is this your first funeral, Aimee?” Chloe asked. “You know this isn’t about you, right? Fishnet stockings, really?”

  “Eff off, Princess,” Aimee said. “We can’t all rock the burlap look.”

  “Can we not fight, children?” Jay pleaded. “Mother’s under enough pressure here.”

  To my knowledge, this was Aimee’s first funeral. Aimee studiously avoided all things potentially unpleasant—children, dogs, plants, Renée Zellweger comedies, and love. She folded her long legs under her and I snuggled onto her shoulder.

  “Indira Chloe raised her voice first,” Aimee said, pouting.

  “Jay wants to turn John’s funeral into a Broadway musical,” Chloe said.

  “And that’s bad, how?” Jay asked, waving the teasing comb. “Wait, before we go any further. Just … take a look.”

  He pulled a hatbox out of a shopping bag. “Florence of Miami sent her.” Florence, Jay’s mom, had hopes that her 6′4″ Nordic god progeny was going to be the world’s most famous drag queen. That’s the kind of mother she was.

  “Jay,” Aimee said, “this is not the Kentucky Derby.”

  Jay op
ened the hatbox … and brought out a veil. I am not kidding.

  “I’m not wearing a veil,” I said.

  “Don’t you want to be fashion-forward?” Jay asked.

  “I didn’t even wear a veil at my wedding,” I pointed out.

  “To my eternal dismay,” Jay said.

  “Wedding?” Aimee said. “Standing in line at the courthouse behind a guy with prison tats and a girl with shaved eyebrows—”

  “I don’t know why you didn’t have it in my backyard,” Chloe said. “I had a Hindu priestess, a certified vegan caterer, Native American four-piece band …”

  “And I just lost hearing in one ear,” Jay said. “Girls, you know how I love a white wedding. Well, Hannah’s was the most romantic wedding I’ve ever been to.”

  I looked up at Jay, and he grabbed my hand. Aimee checked her Cartier watch from Disappointed Suitor, Fall 2007. “Ten minutes, people. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Aimee,” Jay said, “this is an iconic moment in Hannah’s life. Let them wait.”

  “After all,” Chloe said, “it’s not like John’s going anywhere.”

  We all looked at Chloe, who clapped her hand over her mouth. Jay burst out laughing. It was so absurd, choosing the right shoes and hairstyle for my husband’s funeral. I wondered whose tragic life I had stumbled into. I had to laugh, too, through my tears. Even Aimee tried laughing, though it looked like a struggle. In the midst of my grief, I thought Aimee could lay off Professor Botox for a couple weeks.

  The 405 freeway was suspiciously uncrowded. Where were all the normal people—the “norms,” Jay and I called them—rushing to normal events? I looked out the window at gray skies. I couldn’t take the thought of rain. John hated rain.

  Where are you? I thought. Why did you leave me?

  “I wish we’d have brought Ellie,” Jay said. “I feel like I’m lying to my little darling.”

  I had been to funerals before. Mom and Dad’s funeral—that was a biggie. Emotionally, I mean; there were no attendance records broken. I’d decided not to bring Ellie. This could have been a bad call. But look, when you are forced to decide whether to take your preschooler to her daddy’s funeral, then you can judge.

  “She had the perfect dress,” Jay said.

  “Ellie’s way too young,” Chloe said. “Check my mommy blog.”

  “Please don’t talk about your mommy blog,” Aimee said. “I beg you.”

  “Ellie would have looked exquisite,” Jay said. “I’m just thinking of the photographs.” Uncle Jay had bought Ellie the perfect two-hundred-dollar dress for a kid who’s going to a fancy wedding, high tea, or, you know, Daddy’s funeral. Ellie had opened the big box with the rope handle and squealed. It was a Jenny Kayne midnight-blue silk dress with an empire waistline.

  “She makes children’s clothes?” I had asked, pulling John’s old gray robe tighter and wiping my nose with the sleeve. I had slept in this robe for two nights.

  “Where do you think the money is?” Jay said. “Kids and dogs, sweetheart.” He was slipping the dress over Ellie’s chubby arms, held high above her head. It was their personal Dancing with the Stars routine.

  “Divine!” Jay said, as Ellie twirled, pausing before the heavy antique mirror in the living room, placed to give the small room a feeling of depth. “Look at my angel—she’s Audrey Hepburn!” he said, then whispered, “It’s perfect for the f-u-n-e-r-a-l.”

  The truth about Ellie, my glowing, effervescent daughter, is that she has a little weight problem. Okay, she’s a chunk. I feel terrible even talking about this. She’s chubby, cute, but at certain angles, chubby, uh-oh. Like Michelle Obama could come after her with a calorie counter. In my neighborhood, the kids are thin as knives.

  “Ixnay on the uneral-fay,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll take her to the MOCA opening for Murikami.”

  “Please don’t turn her into the girl from the Grinch.”

  “God no. That kid looks like a walking STD,” Jay said. He refused to believe there was anything “wrong” with “his” child. Since her six-month half-birthday, he’d taken her to breakfast at the Polo Lounge, sushi at Katsuya, charity balls at the Beverly Hilton, fund-raisers in Brentwood mansions, and premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. He dressed her like royalty, or, you know, Suri.

  Jay had an ongoing one-sided rivalry with Suri Cruise.

  “We wore that last week!” Jay would yell at a picture of the littlest Cruise in People magazine. “That whole sailor look—Ellie’s already played that, sister!”

  I’d look over his shoulder, and indeed, there’d be Suri, wearing one of Ellie’s outfits.

  “Suri is gorgeous and sweet and she’s being raised by people who are very close to seemingly human,” I’d say. “What about that Jolie-Pitt brood?”

  “Well, I adore me some Shiloh. She knows exactly who she is. Flannel has a name and that name is Shiloh. I say, more power to her. Own it, girl! You do you!”

  We’d left Ellie at the neighbor’s house, watching loud cartoons, as though the world was still making good on its promises.

  The limo turned onto Hillside Memorial driveway and parked in front of a big white building. “You look beautiful, honey,” Jay said. “Like Kim Novak beautiful.”

  I pulled the veil over my face. I understood why widows wore veils. Grief changes a face. You’re unrecognizable, even to yourself. Your facial geography is redrawn, as though gravity has struck, suddenly and indelibly.

  I teetered into an auditorium filled with faces, familiar and unfamiliar. Whose life is this? Why?

  “Goodness,” Jay whispered, as he held me up. “Standing room only.”

  “John was so beloved,” Chloe said, as she started weeping and snapped pictures with her iPhone.

  “No,” Aimee said, snatching the phone. “You are not twitpic-ing John’s funeral.”

  “Are memorial services the new singles bar?” Jay asked.

  I focused; the attendees were 25–45, in the warm-to-on-fire range. John’s fan base was young and included gay men and single women. Based on his series, they must have thought he was single, or didn’t care that he was married. L.A. Moral Standards = Champagne Bentley + Malibu Colony beach house minus wife and kids.

  “They’re dressed like they’re going to Vegas to see Sting,” Aimee sniffed. Aimee was not ready to hand over her “Prettiest One in the Room” trophy. These Brookes and Jasmines would have to pry it from her cold, dead hands. Pardon the expression.

  “Facebook,” Jay said, as though Facebook were the explanation for everything. “Hold your head high, Hannah. You’re Liz Taylor, remember? Let’s give them a show.”

  He kissed my hand. With as much dignity and balance as I could muster on Louboutin stilettos (a funeral gift from Uncle Jay) I made the most glamorous entrance of my life, as though this were the movie version of “My Husband’s Funeral” starring Hannah Marsh Bernal.

  Sophia, Ava, Ingrid, and La Liz, herself, would have been proud.

  * * *

  The Grief Team and I had agreed to let Chloe speak for me at the funeral. Chloe was the earthy, poetic one. She would choose the right words to capture the man who was my husband.

  I still couldn’t find those words. I tried. I didn’t have any sonnets in my head, no poetic verse I could conjure up. I couldn’t do it then, couldn’t do it now. Maybe when I’m very old, and have distance over time and space, distance and memory loss.

  Chloe made her way to the podium. I waited for her to tell everyone how wonderful John was, in every single way that I could think of. Even the ways that made me crazy. She would tell them he was a giving husband and father, kind to animals, plants, and made magic with crushed garlic … and I was going to die without him.

  “I’ve always had a crush on John,” Chloe said, into the microphone.

  After that, I blanked out. Jay finally raced up and wrestled the microphone from Chloe, who was rhapsodizing about John’s veal piccata for an uncomfortably long t
ime (especially for a vegan).

  “So,” Jay said, into the microphone, “I’ve always had a crush on John.”

  The most popular boy had married me, the geeky girl. Without him, I was nothing. Without him, I would disappear.

  Jay had planned a small memorial for a few select people at my home. “Let people give you their condolences,” Jay said, when I objected. “Let people say goodbye.”

  “I don’t want to say goodbye,” I wept. “I never want to say goodbye.”

  I sat on my couch, Spice at my feet, and received the sad faces, the nervous smiles, the plates of homemade squash risotto, the tears rolling down big men’s faces and the shaky grips of slender women. That night, after the “festivities,” Aimee and I relaxed outside in John’s new patio chairs, under my avocado tree, and shared a cigarette. I hadn’t smoked in a decade. Chloe came out with a pile of laundry under her arms. She’d been cleaning house since the last mourner had left.

  “Everything’s under control,” Chloe said. “The dishes are out of the dishwasher. I have raw, organic vegan meals for two weeks in the freezer.”

  “Discomfort food,” Aimee said. “Sit, Chloe. You’re making me crazy. More crazy than usual.”

  “Chloe, what are you doing with those clothes?” I asked.

  “Laundry. I brought my own nontoxic detergent.”

  “No!” I said, shooting up from my chair. “No … no laundry—”

  “But it’s just dirty clothes,” she said. “They were all in a garbage bag.”

  “They were in there for a reason,” I said, as I tore through the basket. “I have to keep John’s scent, don’t you see? I have to keep him.” White and black T-shirts. Calvin Klein jockey shorts. Socks. I grabbed the basket and ran into the kitchen. I could feel Chloe’s and Aimee’s eyes on me.

  “No laundry!” I said, slamming the door behind me.

  4

  Wife After Death

  Beyond the shock and the horror, there’s just so much … stuff. That box of Sweet’N Low in the cupboard? No one drinks coffee with Sweet’N Low. No one except John. I always told him that one day, that stuff would kill him. Way to prove me wrong.