Yes, it is totally unexpected. Though (yes) the widow should have had more faith.

  For though she’d left her cell phone on yet (somehow) it has happened that a call came for Michaela during the three-hour workshop.

  Hadn’t heard the phone ring, she is sure.

  Instructing the nurses at the Cancer Center please call me if there is any news. If anything happens . . .

  So they’d called, or someone had called, and though Michaela had made certain that her cell phone was on, she had not heard its hopeful trill, hadn’t felt its vibrating, had missed it entirely.

  Eagerly, anxiously listening to voice mail now: This is a message for Mrs. Gerard McManus. There has been a mistake, Mrs. McManus. Your husband Gerard is alive. He has been transferred from the Santa Tierra Cancer Center to . . . The remainder of the message is garbled, unclear.

  Replayed—This is a message for Mrs. Gerard McManus. There has been a mistake, Mrs. McManus. Your husband Gerard is alive. He has been transferred from the Santa Tierra Cancer Center to . . .

  Again, again and again replayed—This is a message for Mrs. Gerard McManus. There has been a mistake, Mrs. McManus. Your husband Gerard is alive. But he has been transferred from the Santa Tierra Cancer Center to . . .

  Desperately Michaela presses the cell phone against her ear, to hear more clearly.

  Another time: replay?

  39

  “No One Can Reach Him”

  Long will Michaela remember: driving back to Santa Tierra in the early evening.

  A river of lights winking, pulsing. Something awaits her ahead, can’t remember exactly what it is but it is something.

  For to the widow it is nothing that terrifies. Nothing that awaits.

  Her heart quickens, she will drive directly to the hospital. Ascending in the elevator, seventh floor, making her way swiftly and unerringly to room 771 . . . It will still be dinnertime, she can eat with Gerard, leftovers from the tray he has been brought which Gerard will have rejected, inedible hospital food though (as Michaela points out, encouragingly) the applesauce isn’t bad, nor is the plain yogurt, and if Gerard wishes she can request apple juice, in fact if the cafeteria downstairs is still open Michaela can run down and purchase ice cream for him, vanilla seems to be safest to offer Gerard lately . . .

  But no. No longer. Room 771 is occupied now by a stranger.

  None of the nurses would recognize Michaela now. None of the receptionists.

  At the hospital now, there is nothing.

  Must adjust. Readjust. Others have done so throughout millennia.

  Where there was something, now—nothing.

  So exhausted! Teaching the memoir workshop, that had been such a pleasure for Michaela in the past, had been like pushing an enormous boulder up a hill this afternoon, up up up a hill, no end to the hill . . .

  Three hours passing in a blur. Already fading from Michaela’s memory as even a troubled dream fades upon waking.

  The widow’s oasis of (piteous) happiness. This too will be taken from Michaela for her mission is not to assuage her own conscience but to oversee the passage of her husband’s spirit into the next world.

  Eager to return to Santa Tierra. Not to the hospital, of course, for Gerard is no longer a patient there, instead Michaela will drive to the rented house on Vista Drive where she is living (now) alone . . . Yet not (she understands) entirely alone.

  Passing the exit for Placitas she begins to feel it—unmistakably: the steering wheel tugging to the left.

  Gripping the wheel tight, holding steady, seventy-one miles an hour, a speed that allows her to keep pace with traffic in the right lane as vehicles pass her continuously in the left lane, a steady stream of vehicles in the left lanes, which Michaela avoids. Yet, invisible fingers contend with her for control of the steering wheel, panicked she turns the wheel back, toward the right, determined to keep a steady, straight course, not inching over into the left lane where her vehicle would be crumpled, crushed within seconds . . .

  Instantaneous death. Out-of-time.

  Michaela isn’t sure that she can prevent the wheel from turning. Her forehead is oozing sweat. Rivulets of sweat down her sides inside the fresh-laundered shirt, smelling of her body, desperately she brakes the vehicle to a jolting stop on the shoulder of the interstate.

  She is trembling badly. So exhausted, and so alone!

  Fumbles for her cell phone, in her tote bag. The device is slightly different from what she recalls, a kind of cardiac monitor electronically connected to her heart as well as a conventional cell phone.

  “Oh, Gerard! Help me.”

  Relieved to see that Gerard McManus is still listed among her contacts.

  Hears his phone ringing far away.

  Oh, so far away! Michaela’s eyes mist over with tears, no idea where Gerard has gone carrying the cell phone with him.

  “Darling, please answer. Please, please answer me . . .”

  Her heart sinks: a recording clicks on briskly informing her that Gerard McManus’s mailbox is filled, he cannot take any more messages.

  Michaela listens to this message several times, to make sure that she has heard it correctly. To make sure that there isn’t more to the message, which she has missed.

  In the rental car at the side of I-25 as traffic rushes past thunderous as Niagara Falls in the growing dusk.

  “So that’s it, then. No one can reach him.”

  40

  Missing

  Without Gerard she is beginning to lose Michaela.

  Precisely when this began, no idea.

  Seeing one morning that parts of her face were missing. And seeing then by accident, startled, astonished, the left side of her forehead seemed to have faded, left eye vacant, left side of her mouth stiff and thinner than the rest of the mouth which was smiling (bravely), the “good” eye focused, resolute.

  Later she would discover that part of her (left) arm has begun to disappear. Shadowy bone beginning to be visible through translucent skin.

  Examines her (right) hand, only just four fingers which she carefully counts, recounts.

  . . . four, five. (Five? How many fingers should she have had?)

  Placing the hands side by side. Definitely, one is larger than the other.

  Broken dirt-edged fingernails. As if she has been clawing at an unforgiving stone wall that surrounds her.

  Vividly she recalls Gerard’s hand. The wholeness, strength of the man’s hand. Comforting thickness of his wrist.

  Hairs stippling the back of his hand. Thicker hairs on his forearm, she’d stroked as you might stroke the pelt of a cat.

  Love you. Oh I love you!

  Beneath the unreality of this world that shimmers, shivers, shudders like ripples on a body of water of an unfathomable depth is the other world, which Gerard awaits.

  Trying to lift her eyes, to see Gerard’s face.

  But this face too has lost its clarity. Beginning to fade even as the hand grips hers, hard. And Gerard’s voice, deeper than she recalls.

  Come kiss me! I’ve been waiting.

  41

  Seven Pounds, Two Ounces

  Strange: for his ashes, she feels very little.

  Bizarre, unexpected—to feel so little.

  A call from the Chapel of Chimes. Hispanic accent, difficult to comprehend, low-throaty voice so she (mis)hears for a startled moment—Chapel of Crimes.

  The impulse is to laugh. When you hear the solemn words Your husband’s cremains you particularly want to laugh.

  The widow drives across town to the Chapel of Chimes to pick up the urn containing the cremains of her husband. Alone the widow drives, no one in the seat beside her. Alone the widow fulfills another of the death duties custom and the law have established she must fulfill as the widow of a husband newly deceased. By this time Michaela has become a neutral agent, benumbed.

  Eviscerated as a (gutted) chicken. No more tears to weep. Tear-rivulets have worn into her cheeks.

  Yes of course I would far rather be dead but I am not dead, as it happens.

  The urn containing the cremains is discreetly encased in a soft maroon cloth bag with a drawstring. To receive this urn Michaela must produce photo ID which a solemn-faced female clerk at the crematory examines carefully as if imposture might be a serious possibility in these circumstances. In addition, Michaela must sign several legal documents though she has already paid for the incineration of her husband.

  Such vigilance is curious to Michaela, she is tempted to inquire of the solemn-faced heavily made-up woman—Is it common that ashes are appropriated by strangers? Is this a particular problem at the Chapel of Chimes? But that would sound like a joke and it is indelicate to joke at such a time.

  Or, it might sound sarcastic and it is bad taste to speak sarcastically at such a time.

  Yes it’s all ridiculous, what kids call bullshit but please don’t worry, I will fulfill my obligations as invariably I do.

  Oh, unexpectedly heavy! Michaela feels panic as the cremains inside the soft maroon cloth bag are handed to her, so much heavier than she might have imagined. Only seven pounds, two ounces? A man who, only a few months ago, weighed nearly two hundred pounds?

  Almost, Michaela fears she will drop the urn. For it is utterly, utterly impossible to believe, that she is holding, in her arms, all that remains of Gerard McManus.

  But she grasps the object tight, tight against her chest.

  Must be looking very white-faced, sick. The clerk catches her arm and asks if she is all right?

  Yes! Michaela assuring the heavily made-up face with a bright faux smile, she is all right.

  FOR IT HAS BEEN MADE clear to her, Gerard’s spirit is restless and wandering and has little to do with the (merely) physical body that was incinerated for several hours in a white-hot furnace being reduced to seven pounds, two ounces of what is called ash.

  Backseat, front seat?—which is appropriate for the cremains of a husband?

  Carefully Michaela places the urn in the passenger’s seat, beside her.

  (But no seat belt! No.)

  All that remains of Gerard McManus?—Michaela smiles to think so.

  Mere ashes can’t contain Gerard’s unique being. Not possible.

  You know that I am here, Michaela. But I am elsewhere.

  On the two-mile route back to the rented house on Vista Drive Michaela takes care to drive with caution. Tremulous and breathing oddly Michaela dreads even a minor accident at such a fraught time.

  How bizarre it is, yet how matter-of-fact and ordinary, even commonplace, Michaela is bringing her husband’s cremains back to a house that was never their home, in an urn, indeed the “economy urn,” inside a soft-cloth bag more appropriate for toiletries; and this urn beside her, as if companionably, in the passenger’s seat of her car.

  Often it had seemed during the hospital vigil of the past several weeks that when he’d struggled for breath Michaela had breathed for Gerard and so now it seems that Michaela is breathing for him, still.

  Which is why she must keep breathing—deep even rhythmic breaths, to calm him. And herself.

  A finite number of breaths required to bring Gerard’s cremains back to the house, to be placed on top of the bureau in their bedroom.

  Still, she feels little. Feels nothing, really. For (she knows) that Gerard is elsewhere, not in the silly cloth bag. Ridiculous!

  Ridiculous too, the efforts of Iris Esdras to intervene in the widow’s death duties. Over-solicitous Iris had volunteered to drive Michaela to the crematory to pick up the cremains so that Michaela wouldn’t have to go alone “at such a time”; indeed, Iris has kindly volunteered to accompany Michaela on any mission including introducing Michaela to a “grief” therapist, and has several times invited Michaela to dinner, or lunch, or drinks or tea or Iris’s Zen yoga class—Should you want company at this difficult time, Michaela. Please know that I am here for you.

  Not possible!—Michaela thinks, indignant.

  For only if she is alone will Gerard approach her.

  42

  Café Luz de la Luna

  So lonely!—she could not bear it.

  The savage hot winds had ceased. The sky was torn and tattered as gangrene. Heat lightning flashed and faded.

  Yet it was only just afternoon, this unnatural twilight. Michaela thought, excited—The other world is pressing close. It will be easy to step from one into the other.

  She would have to leave the house where it was becoming difficult to breathe. They were instructing her to leave the house. Hurry!—she heard them whispering. In a backpack she carried the manuscript.

  The cremated remains she would leave behind of course. Placed atop the bureau in their bedroom, inside the soft maroon cloth scarcely identifiable as an object of significance: mere matter.

  You know, I am elsewhere.

  She knew. She had no doubt.

  Swiftly then, descending the hill. At so sharp an angle, the muscles in her calves soon began to ache.

  So often she’d made her way down this hill, it had obliterated all other hills in her memory. As the effort of breathing for Gerard had obliterated all other effort in her memory.

  (Had she lapsed into the kind of woman who wore a backpack, clothes that looked as if she’d slept in them, whose hair was a windswept tangle? Soon her teeth would have turned yellow, fingernails and toenails gnarled as talons.)

  (Her goddess would be the demon Skli with the gaping mouth, gaping vagina whose ravening emptiness can never be filled.)

  At the foot of the hill Michaela turned breathless and bitter away from the high adobe walls of the Institute. Overnight an unreasonable rage on the part of Gerard had filled her, that his office at the Institute had been cleared out and given to another scholar. Books which she’d helped him pack to bring from Cambridge, Mass., placed so specifically on shelves in the office, in alphabetical order, with such hope for the work he hoped to do in the upcoming weeks, had been removed, boxed and returned to him, that’s to say to his widow, in the house on Vista Drive.

  When would these books be unboxed?—Michaela could not bring herself to imagine.

  But why so bitter?—Michaela did not question.

  The dead resent the living. For the dead have only the living to honor them.

  They were waiting for Michaela to leave Santa Tierra, she knew. Iris Esdras had made that clear. Even as Iris pretended to be Michaela’s friend, Iris was hoping to convince her to leave. Vacate the house, return to Massachusetts, we will help you pack, we will make arrangements for you.

  But Michaela resisted, Michaela deleted their emails, phone messages.

  . . . tried to arrange for the poor woman to see a therapist. Tried to befriend her.

  When I tried to hug her she stiffened in my arms . . .

  . . . so strange, her skin felt as if it was on fire.

  Rare for Santa Tierra the sky glowered like tin. A light rain had begun to fall, the air was porous with mist. On a side street Michaela saw a small café with a terrace, tables with umbrellas. It was a café she’d often passed on her way to the hospital without taking much notice—Café Luz de la Luna. At this hour it was near-deserted. A half-dozen tables, strings of small white lights overhead redundant and foolish in daylight.

  Was the café even open? No one on the terrace, no one visible inside.

  Here is a good place for us. No one to interfere.

  SLOWLY, MICHAELA HAS BEEN GOING through the (badly mangled) copyedited manuscript of The Human Brain and Its Discontents.

  Slowly, conscientiously, obsessively—in dread of overlooking mistakes, or making mistakes of her own.

  She’d assisted Gerard in his scholarly work, in the past. Collating footnotes, proofreading galleys. Retyping pages with pleasure, for she’d genuinely enjoyed her husband’s prose. And yes, Michaela had perceived that immersing herself in Gerard McManus’s work would be a way into Gerard McManus’s heart, a way of making herself indispensable to him, as a wife and closest friend; his first wife, she knew, had not much shared his intellectual interests, and had become estranged from him over a course of years. But Michaela would not so take Gerard McManus for granted, Michaela had other plans.

  She hadn’t minded loving Gerard more than he loved her. That he was the dominant person in their marriage seemed natural to her. His stature in the world was far greater than her own. His personality seemed to her more developed, more expansive than her own. Certainly he was more intelligent, more educated. He’d been married previously, he had children; Michaela had no children, and had never been married. He’d expressed a concern that he might be exploiting her, her very wish to assist him with his work, but Michaela had protested no, not at all, she was learning from him, she was grateful to him for bringing such happiness into her life.

  He’d never seemed to truly believe her, that she was grateful for his love. A kind of beggar-maid, Michaela thought, wryly.

  Taking such pride in the dedications in his books—for Michaela, my beloved wife and first reader.

  (Of course, Michaela had dedicated both her slender memoirs to Gerard, my beloved husband and first reader.)

  And so, The Human Brain and Its Discontents is Michaela’s responsibility. There is no one else but Michaela to help prepare this final work of Gerard’s for publication at Harvard University Press.

  Though Michaela has been going through the manuscript methodically, hoping to repair damage, the manuscript is still far from complete. Not only are individual pages missing, but entire sections also seem to be missing, or are mis-numbered within the text and difficult to retrieve. It seems likely that a number of Post-its with editorial queries have been lost as well as pages that Gerard had annotated in his small precise handwriting. Several chapters near the end contain blank passages and incomplete footnotes as if the author had been in a hurry and intended to fill them in at a later time; in the margins are queries the author seemed to have made to himself (which? why? how possible?) which went unanswered. The first ninety pages seem to have been corrected and revised, and read smoothly; beyond this the manuscript deteriorates, the text is erratic and obscure. There are additions to the manuscript Scotch-taped to pages, that have come undone; how many of these may have been lost, Michaela has no way of knowing. Michaela has corrected obvious errors, and rewritten obscure passages to make them clearer. (Of course, she has restored the original dedication—for my beloved wife and first reader Michaela—that had become mysteriously mangled.)