Now that she’s gone, Eddie tries. At work, he straps himself on a roller coaster curve, high and alone, like a mountain climber. At night, he watches television in the apartment. He goes to bed early. No cake. No guests. It is never hard to act ordinary if you feel ordinary, and the paleness of surrender becomes the color of Eddie’s days.
He is 60, a Wednesday. He gets to the shop early. He opens a brown-bag lunch and rips a piece of bologna off a sandwich. He attaches it to a hook, then drops the twine down the fishing hole. He watches it float. Eventually, it disappears, swallowed by the sea.
He is 68, a Saturday. He spreads his pills on the counter. The telephone rings. Joe, his brother, is calling from Florida. Joe wishes him happy birthday. Joe talks about his grandson. Joe talks about a condominium. Eddie says “uh-huh” at least 50 times.
He is 75, a Monday. He puts on his glasses and checks the maintenance reports. He notices someone missed a shift the night before and the Squiggly Wiggly Worm Adventure has not been brake-tested. He sighs and takes a placard from the wall—RIDE CLOSED TEMPORARILY FOR MAINTENANCE—then carries it across the boardwalk to the Wiggly Worm entrance, where he checks the brake panel himself.
He is 82, a Tuesday. A taxi arrives at the park entrance. He slides inside the front seat, pulling his cane in behind him.
“Most people like the back,” the driver says.
“You mind?” Eddie asks.
The driver shrugs. “Nah. I don’t mind.” Eddie looks straight ahead. He doesn’t say that it feels more like driving this way, and he hasn’t driven since they refused him a license two years ago.
The taxi takes him to the cemetery. He visits his mother’s grave and his brother’s grave and he stands by his father’s grave for only a few moments. As usual, he saves his wife’s for last. He leans on the cane and he looks at the headstone and he thinks about many things. Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her.
The Last Lesson
THE LITTLE GIRL APPEARED TO BE ASIAN, maybe five or six years old, with a beautiful cinnamon complexion, hair the color of a dark plum, a small flat nose, full lips that spread joyfully over her gapped teeth, and the most arresting eyes, as black as a seal’s hide, with a pinhead of white serving as a pupil. She smiled and flapped her hands excitedly until Eddie edged one step closer, whereupon she presented herself.
“Tala,” she said, offering her name, her palms on her chest.
“Tala,” Eddie repeated.
She smiled as if a game had begun. She pointed to her embroidered blouse, loosely slung over her shoulders and wet with the river water.
“Baro,” she said.
“Baro.”
She touched the woven red fabric that wrapped around her torso and legs.
“Saya.”
“Saya.”
Then came her cloglike shoes—“bakya”—then the iridescent seashells by her feet—“capiz”—then a woven bamboo mat—“banig”—that was laid out before her. She motioned for Eddie to sit on the mat and she sat, too, her legs curled underneath her.
None of the other children seemed to notice him. They splashed and rolled and collected stones from the river’s floor. Eddie watched one boy rub a stone over the body of another, down his back, under his arms.
“Washing,” the girl said. “Like our inas used to do.”
“Inas?” Eddie said.
She studied Eddie’s face.
“Mommies,” she said.
Eddie had heard many children in his life, but in this one’s voice, he detected none of the normal hesitation toward adults. He wondered if she and the other children had chosen this riverbank heaven, or if, given their short memories, such a serene landscape had been chosen for them.
She pointed to Eddie’s shirt pocket. He looked down. Pipe cleaners.
“These?” he said. He pulled them out and twisted them together, as he had done in his days at the pier. She rose to her knees to examine the process. His hands shook. “You see? It’s a…” he finis