The widow in her weeds - Short Story

Literary Review, Wntr, 2004 by W.J. Thornton

The Hospital

As soon as she arrives at the hospital she knows her husband has died because the receptionist won't meet her eye. She knows he has died because, when she demands to see him, they tell her she is hysterical and put her in a room by herself. She knows he has died because a nurse tells her the doctor will be in shortly. She knows her husband has died because she can feel it in her empty fists as they beat against the cold cement wall of the telling room.

The School

The school where her husband works is huge. She has always hated it. It reminds her of her own high school, a concrete monolith with long corridors lined with gray lockers, colored banners announcing club meetings, decrepit water fountains and graffiti smeared bathrooms. She has been with her husband to proms at the school, where they chaperoned the students, shooed them and their ill concealed bottles away from the punch bowls, and where she and her husband danced together to the amusement of the student body. Her husband is (no ... was) a good dancer. She does not doubt that the student who shot her husband missed the proms. He would not have shot her husband if he had ever seen him do the twist.

She thinks of the school as a corporate conglomerate producing a product. The principal, Eddie Dugger, is a former CEO for a bankrupt dot-com who experienced a midlife career change. The principal speaks of education in terms of cost/benefit ratio, statistical analyses, end products. He pays for a counselor to come to her home and help her deal with her loss. The school sends flowers to the funeral home. The principal sends a personal note. The note is typewritten.

The Press

The press camps out on her lawn and points klieg lights at her door. Her relatives pull the curtains. Her sister's husband, Rob, is appointed family spokesman by her parents, who have come to stay until after the funeral. Rob begins talking to the press in a reasonable manner. "My sister-in-law, Gretchen, is devastated by the loss of her husband, Sam. We ask that you respect her privacy during this terrible tragedy." The press does not understand respect. By the end of the week, Rob is extending his middle finger to the press and Gretchen's brother, Norman, is appointed the new family spokesman.

The Parents

The parents of the boy who shot her husband call. First the mother calls, crying, to apologize. Then the father calls. "You know we lost our only son," he says harshly. She answers, "I lost my only husband." "He wasn't a bad boy," the mother says. Her voice is pleading, as if she could convince herself by convincing Gretchen. "I didn't know he had a gun," the boy's father says. Gretchen, too tired to reply, nevertheless thinks to herself, "You registered it."

The Other Kids

The other kids at the school admit that they teased and harassed the shooter, that he was an outsider, a geek with a temper. She cannot find it in herself to feel sorry for the boy, even though she herself was tormented by students during her high school career. A dreamy child, she often sat with her head propped on her hand, until the day she looked around the cafeteria and found a dozen people imitating her pensive body language. She blushed as their raucous laughter rattled off the walls. She never, ever sat with her chin on her palm again.

Gawky, too tall for her clothes, she tolerated the whispers of the girls who called her "shut" behind her back. Her skirts were too short and her parents couldn't afford new clothes. Even the school officials got into the act, making her bend down in the hallway to prove her skirts were too short while the other students looked on, snickering. But Gretchen didn't grow up to blow away a teacher.

Cruelty made her tough, taught her compassion. She cannot stand by while someone less fortunate is teased. So she has no sympathy for the guilt ridden students who tearfully confess to the press that yes, they tormented the shooter but they didn't mean it. Let them stew in their culpability.

Flying Objects

Gretchen throws things. Sometimes when she is lying alone in her bedroom, anger overcomes her and she pitches whatever is at hand into the wall. The first few times, her parents and other relatives came running in to see what was wrong. Now they just ignore the thumps and crashes from her bedroom. They plan to stay for a week, to help her deal with the funeral, the press. She is glad they are here because the house is not so quiet as it would otherwise be. She also wishes they would go home so she can pull the covers up over her head and sleep for a month.

Soon they will go back to their peaceful little lives. They will no doubt comment on the wretchedness of her luck, the sorrow of her condition. This thought enrages her. She hates for people to pity her. Last year when she lost the baby at five months, everyone came and hovered until she begged them to get on with their lives. Sam took a leave of absence, but his omnipresent worry, his tentative treatment of her, as if she were a porcelain doll laid out on their bed, drove her to distraction. She demanded he go back to school. His kids needed him, she said. It wasn't fair to the substitute to be out so long. Now, oh God, she would give anything to have that time back. She picks up a deodorant bottle off her dresser and pitches it against the wall. As if to defy her, it does not break.