You have no time to recoil in horror. You have no wish to provoke that fist to strike your face.

  As your companion urges you along you have a glimpse of crude paintings, carvings. He has brought you to a Native American market. Animals with blunt protruding muzzles, small greedy eyes, curved tusks. Animals with savage bared saliva-glistening fangs. Predator birds, coiled serpents with gleaming coins for eyes. Weyaki, God of Chaos, in the shape of a fat squat pop-eyed bullfrog. Find yourself staring at crude drawings of white-skinned people—White men, White uniformed men beating dark-skinned persons with clubs, knocking them to the ground, kicking ribs, bellies, faces.

  Uniformed soldiers on horseback shooting rifles point-blank at Indians who have already fallen to the ground. Slaughter of Indian women and children, naked bodies heaped together. A pueblo village, a flaming cross.

  Grinning White faces, skull-faces. Mouths dripping blood.

  White women with red labial lips, chalky-white skin, spots of rouge on cheekbones like clowns. White women teetering in ridiculous high-heeled shoes, tight-fitting clothes accentuating their bony chests, pelvises, pointy little breasts. Is this how they see us? you think. Is this how they see me.

  You are out of place here. You don’t belong here. The eyes of dark-skinned strangers light upon you, indignant.

  White bitch. White butcher.

  Race murderer!

  Turn away, frightened. Hatred for you glares in their eyes. Try to protest it wasn’t you, isn’t you, not you who are the race murderer. Yes it is true, you are a White woman, but you are not a race murderer—not you!

  Music has been driven out of the air, the air is filled with shouts of derision, loathing. Try to turn back but a fist strikes your face causing you to stagger. You sink to your knees. Blood splashes onto the loose T-shirt you are wearing, dripping from your nose. Your companion whom you’ve trusted in the pathos of your need has turned against you, in disgust of you.

  Is this Gerard? Your husband? Pushing you from him, publicly repudiating you?

  Call after him—Gerard! As a terrified child calls for a parent——Don’t leave me here! Don’t leave me here alone!

  Within minutes the sky has darkened to night, the air is thin and cold. The sun has disappeared beneath the horizon. A glaring-white moon has risen. No mercy for the race murderer!

  The lights of Santa Tierra are miles away. You have been brought to the edge of the desert. Shivering convulsively you have been brought to the altar of the cruel Skull God of the high desert plateau—the demon-god Ishtikini. Pueblo-god of toothless laughter, god of eyeless sockets, beast-god, god of bone-piles, scavenger-god, cannibal-god poised to devour the body’s organs as life ceases to pulse through them: heart, brain, lungs, kidney, liver, stomach, intestines, genitals.

  The demon-goddess Skli runs shrieking at you. Her talon-fingers claw at your face. Blood drips from between her legs. Arms grip you tight, tight around the rib cage, scarcely can you breathe as Skli jabs her razor-sharp talons between your legs, up inside you in a scalding spasm of pain.

  Cries of a wounded and terrified animal, terrible to hear.

  You are left to fall, fall heavily, ignominiously on the ground wetted with your dark-oozing blood. Too weak to cry for help or even to lift your head.

  47

  Dawn

  Wakened by a din of wild parrots in the ravine behind the house! Sounding as if they are being killed but when Michaela ventures out onto the deck barefoot and (who knows how haphazardly) clothed she sees nothing except a fleeting flurry of wings, vivid-green, bloodred in the foliage below.

  Very still she stands listening. Leaning against the railing, gazing down.

  Waiting to be told—what? Mesmerized by savage cries, as by the savagery of grief.

  UNDERSTAND: YOUR HUSBAND IS DEAD. He is not coming back. But you are alive. You must return to your own life.

  48

  The Good Widow

  “Yes. I understand.”

  That morning, when the phone rings, Michaela answers it instead of ignoring it as she has done for weeks.

  Instead of shrinking away in dread. Pressing her hands over her ears, running from the room.

  Later, she begins to make calls herself. Belated calls, she hopes not too late.

  Unopened mail (forwarded from Cambridge, Mass.) dumped onto a table in a room she rarely enters, shunned for weeks she begins to sort into several piles.

  Trembling hands, racing heart, has to urge herself Breathe!—breathe but she does not falter, she does not faint though her blood pressure has become dangerously low in recent weeks, often she has to lower her head between her legs, at her weakest she has had to crawl up the stairs to the second floor of the house wounded by grief, crazed by grief, broken by grief as a snake upon whose vertebrae a giant boot has stomped.

  Understanding: soon it will be time for her to leave Santa Tierra.

  Soon, time to vacate the house on Vista Drive which has been leased through the month of August.

  And soon, time for Michaela to assume her responsibilities as the widow of Gerard McManus and as the executrix of the estate of Gerard McManus whose Last Will & Testament is to be submitted for due process in the Middlesex County Probate Court, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  “YES. I AM SO VERY SORRY. I have been out of communication, I have no excuse . . .”

  It has been weeks, she has failed in her duties. She has allowed herself to succumb to grief. She has allowed herself to deteriorate mentally, physically. Failed to open crucial letters and so she has failed to mail copies of her husband’s death certificate to their lawyer’s office. Failed to return crucial telephone calls, emails since in the time required to even make a decision returning such calls and emails she is likely to have lapsed into an open-eyed dream recalling in painful detail how for years she and Gerard shopped together at the Safeway on Massachusetts Avenue using two carts, for efficiency’s sake separating just inside the store (Michaela to begin with fresh produce, Gerard to begin with fish and seafood) and meeting at the checkout counter, where Michaela was invariably first, as Gerard required time to select particular items like cereal, coffee, orange juice, and did not care to be “rushed”; how Michaela laughed at Gerard, for feeling obliged to declare that, in the Safeway, as elsewhere (museums, for instance) he did not care to be “rushed” which (Michaela understood) was a way of chiding her for moving too swiftly, as an impatient child might do; how on a good day, they would have remembered to bring their own (cloth) bags for the groceries into the store: crimson tote bag from the Harvard Coop, green tote bag from Greenpeace, two or three other tote bags of no consequence at the time and charged with consequence now, that these scraps of rag have outlived Gerard McManus; how companionably the couple loaded their groceries into the trunk of Gerard’s Subaru Forester; how, at the house on Monroe Street, to which, as usual, Gerard had driven them, they carried the groceries into the house through the side door, from the garage; how, in the kitchen, they unloaded the bags, cans in cupboards, perishables in the refrigerator, bananas in a fruit bowl on the counter; how beautifully choreographed their movements, “Gerard”—“Michaela”; at the same time, how totally oblivious they are of their movements, and of the astonishing fact that they are together, and that they are alive; that is—“Gerard” and “Michaela” are alive together. Long entranced minutes are required for Michaela in the rented house on Vista Drive in Santa Tierra in the third month of widowhood to perceive this astonishing truth, and yet more minutes are required as the widow stares at this “Gerard” and “Michaela” seeing that they are talking about something, since entering the kitchen they have scarcely ceased talking about something, smiling, laughing, but what is the subject?—what so engrosses them, as Gerard places a bag of frozen peas in the freezer (which, Michaela sees, he is putting in the wrong place, not in the freezer drawer with other frozen vegetables but on the [door] shelf with frozen bread—but she will not correct him now, she will wait until later, when Gerard isn’t around to observe), as Michaela stands on her toes to arrange cans of soup with their labels facing outward on the third shelf of the cupboard beside the refrigerator; but the widow can’t hear what they are saying, she can see their mouths moving, she can hear the murmur of their voices; she is filled with distress that she can’t know why Michaela is laughing, shaking her head in that way that signals disbelief with something (improbable, playful) that Gerard is saying, and in Gerard’s face that small, tucked-in smile, signaling that he knows he is exaggerating, of course he isn’t serious, as Michaela knows that he isn’t serious and so they laugh together, in that instant so deeply bonded and so clearly husband-and-wife, the widow in the rented house on Vista Drive begins to sob helplessly, hopelessly for all that she has lost that is irretrievable . . .

  More crucially, the widow has failed to open certified letters sent to her from Gerard’s attorney pursuant to the Last Will & Testament of Gerard McManus for which she has been named executrix as she has been named executrix of Gerard McManus’s manuscripts, archives, and personal library of twenty-six thousand volumes.

  Failed even to (re)read the (thirty-two-page) will, emailed to her from the attorney’s office. (Of course, Gerard’s will should contain no surprises for Michaela: they’d had their wills drawn at the same time, a decade ago, updated four years ago, with the same attorney, and with most of the same provisions in each will.) (Is Michaela’s Last Will & Testament also thirty-two pages long? She has not seen it in years, and has no idea.) Well, the widow cannot explain what has happened to her. When Gerard had so clearly depended upon her.

  Naming my wife Michaela his executrix. His principal beneficiary. Entrusting her with his priceless manuscript.

  His children, her stepchildren. Her in-laws.

  “Hello? This is Michaela. Yes—me . . . I’m so sorry . . .”

  Always a hazard to speak with Gerard’s family, friends, those who’d loved him yet Michaela remains dry-eyed through the ordeal and does not stutter or stammer, much.

  “. . . he’d asked me to tell you he loves—loved you . . .”

  Choking, unable to continue. For Christ’s sake Breathe!—one damned breath after another.

  Likely that her tear ducts have atrophied. Grief drained from every pore like oily sweat.

  Too complicated to explain to Gerard’s family that at the start of his hospitalization she’d begged him to allow her to contact them but he’d refused. Pride, or whatever it had been. And soon then, too late.

  Still, no one accuses Michaela. Not the daughter, and not the son. Indeed, each exhibits surprise and relief that their negligent stepmother has called, at last.

  “. . . yes, he wanted to be remembered to you. At the very end, he . . .”

  None of this is remotely true. In his misery, in the opioid delirium of his final days Gerard had barely been conscious of Michaela cradling him in her arms, kissing his forehead.

  “. . . said how he loved you, he was so sorry he hadn’t wanted visitors . . .”

  To be a good widow, as to be a good wife, one must learn how to lie convincingly.

  As Michaela recovers her sane self, she will recover her (atrophied) ability to lie.

  It is unnatural for Michaela to speak with Gerard’s children, relatives, close friends, since invariably in the past it was Gerard who did most of the talking with them, and not Michaela; and it is unnatural to Michaela to seem to be speaking for Gerard as if he can’t speak for himself.

  Strange, to be speaking the name Gerard so frequently. As if Gerard were somewhere distant, or was in some way incapacitated.

  “Yes. You are correct. Gerard had updated his will just a few years ago. So I think that this will is . . .”

  Hearing the voice calm and matter-of-fact as if her life has not shattered, collapsed at her feet.

  Is most of life imposture?—Michaela wonders.

  Only when she’d been sick, after Gerard’s death. Then, Michaela had not been an impostor.

  Others have managed to survive such losses, however. Now, it is Michaela’s turn.

  Her body has been sick, her bowels leaking a watery excrement, swollen pulses beating in her legs, flashing stabs of pain behind her eyes. It has required too much strength to bathe—a shower, far too agitated—scarcely has she troubled to wash her hands after she has used the bathroom.

  For why?—no one gives a damn if your hands are swarming with bacteria.

  But now she prepares to take a shower. If she intends to persevere with her life, to fulfill her duties as a widow, she must at least take a shower, rid her body of the sour animal-odors of grief, despair. Scalding water, soaping between her legs where the demon-goddess Skli had thrust her razor-claws to draw blood, humiliate.

  A raw wound, between her legs. Michaela touches herself cautiously and is surprised that her fingers come away unbloodied.

  A bruise on her lower jaw, where the fist had struck.

  (Had it been Gerard who’d struck her? She remembers the look of fury in his face, stunning to see. Never before in their life together had Gerard come close to striking her.)

  Disconcerting to see hairs in the shower drain, hairs in the bristles of Gerard’s hairbrush. Each time Michaela washes her hair, brushes and combs it, an excessive number of hairs come out.

  Weight-loss will result in hair-loss, Michaela knows. In her feral state she’d gotten into the habit of eating while standing, eating what she can hold in her hand, not taking time to prepare food out of an embarrassment to be eating alone, as an animal eats alone.

  Steamy mirror in which her head is lowered as a beast’s head is lowered before the lethal blow to the skull.

  Shadowed eyes peering at shadowed eyes, appalled at how exhausted she looks, how sickly-pale her face, that would have dismayed Gerard.

  My beautiful girl.

  What have you done to yourself!

  “. . . as soon as the will is probated. Absolutely.”

  Michaela has learned from their attorney in Cambridge that Gerard’s estate is “frozen” until his will can be probated by the Middlesex County Probate Court. Gerard’s and Michaela’s joint bank accounts are (partially) frozen until the will can be probated. This is customary procedure, nothing to be alarmed about. (Michaela is assured.) But it is crucial to make an appointment with the probate court as soon as possible, E. L. Erickson tells her.

  “Certainly, yes. I—I will fly back as soon as . . .”

  Michaela’s voice hovers uncertainly. Fly back—where?

  She will never return to Cambridge, Mass., she knows. Never return to the house on Monroe Street where she would be struck down dead if she stepped inside.

  “. . . things are finalized, here.”

  Finalized. What a word! Michaela’s lips twist in a sneer.

  For all her resolve in the past several days Michaela has been unable to force herself to (re)read Gerard’s will. The horror she’d felt years ago in Erickson’s office as she and Gerard were signing their names on their wills before witnesses returns to her now.

  How correct you were, to be horrified! Terrified.

  How absolutely correct, to understand that these documents signal the end of your existence.

  YET: THERE IS SOMETHING VERY important about the widow returning to the house on Monroe Street, Cambridge.

  Except she cannot seem to recall what it is.

  The first thing you must do, before you even bring your stupid suitcases upstairs, is kill yourself.

  However you can, you will find a way.

  Of course!—there is a distinct way for there is a garage attached to the house as there is not a garage attached to the rented house in Santa Tierra.

  Michaela can stuff towels around the windows in this garage and beneath the sliding door to guarantee that exhaust billowing from the car will not leak out. She has read that death by carbon monoxide inhalation can be astonishingly swift—within three to five minutes in ideal circumstances, in a secured garage.

  Easily then, Michaela can swallow a handful of sleeping pills from her cache of pills, drink a glass or two of wine, relax behind the wheel of the car listening to Gerard’s favorite radio station WCRB-FM (classical music), and drift off to sleep as the motor runs with lethal quiet undetected for far, far longer than three-to-five minutes.

  Yes darling. Come!

  Your hand in mine.

  * * *

  THERE IS SOMETHING IGNOBLE ABOUT inheriting. Something demeaning about surviving.

  Strange, Michaela has scarcely thought of Gerard’s will. Of an inheritance. Her inheritance—the thought fills her with unease.

  Vaguely she recalls that Gerard’s will had been a conventional one. Most of his estate to the surviving spouse. Several other, smaller bequests to Gerard’s children and to charitable organizations to which he’d been donating for years.

  “. . . thank you but no!—that isn’t necessary, Lucinda. Everything is under control.”

  Must discourage the earnest (step)daughter who lives in Seattle from flying to Santa Tierra, to help the (step)mother. As if, after all she has endured, Michaela needs help, now!

  All that she will do, she will do alone.

  Please please please—alone.

  Feeling panic, that Gerard’s relatives will take it upon themselves to come to Santa Tierra, to accompany Michaela back home.

  Though Michaela is grateful, she supposes, that Gerard’s family seems to have forgiven her (inexplicable) behavior.

  As if Michaela had died too. But Michaela had not died.

  “We weren’t sure what to do, Michaela,” Lucinda is saying, hesitantly, “—you never returned our calls or emails. We had no idea how ill Dad was until an administrator from the Institute contacted us. She said she was a ‘close friend’ of yours and that you’d given her permission to keep us informed about Dad . . .”

  Michaela listens with mounting astonishment.

  “I never gave anyone permission to talk about Gerard to you! I don’t even know the woman.”

  “She said she was a friend of yours—‘Iris—’”