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believe that God does everything for a reason even if the reason is a mystery to us.
    That’s not what I did. I said, “I don’t know.”
    Not much help for a little boy.
    “Nobody will ever love me again,” he cried.
    “I love you,” I said. “I need you. I know how you feel. That’s the way I felt yesterday in the car, when you got so mad at me for crying. I felt like I would never fit in again, never be part of the world again, like there was no reason for going on. But the feeling passed. The way you feel hurts now, but it will pass, too.”
    I was strong through his dinner, his bath, and his bedtime, but not for long after. In those early days, when grief was a shot of Novocain to my nervous system, I got through most of the daylight hours in my protective fog. But after Spencer was asleep, after dark when I was alone in the rooms I had shared with Howard, the numbness wore off and I was saturated in sadness. I puttered and searched, or sat on the edge of our bed and stared into space. Inside my head was a chorus of “He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone.” I was a “widow” now, the way some people become an “amputee” or a “cancer survivor” or “blind.” It was a designation I’d never considered, and it couldn’t be altered or washed away. There’s no way to become an ex-widow. I was branded for life.
    I was drawn to Howard’s closet, to the fragrant nest of his suits and sport jackets, where my nose inhaled the familiar scent of him, where I pressed a cheek against the cloth and imagined him there. I fingered his sweaters and his shirts and his ties. His shoes were still neatly lined up in a row, as he’d left them. I crumpled to the floor, tears streaming, holding a shoe to my breast as if it were the dearest thing in the world. I slept in his boxer shorts. They made me feel womanly, but they comforted me, too.
    I looked up the word
widow
in the dictionary. One definition was “a woman whose husband has died.” Another was “an additional hand dealt to the table,” and the third, “an incomplete line of type.” Each worked for me, but especially the last.
    I felt incomplete in every possible way. My bed was empty, myhome was empty, the other end of the kitchen table was empty, the driver’s seat, his desk chair, the chair where he read and watched TV—all were empty. The other half of my conversations was no longer there. The memories we had shared were only my memories now. I picked up the phone but had no one to call. In the shower before bed I slumped to the floor and let the water wash away my tears.
    The public rituals of death played out. The obituaries glowed. One said the Georgetown community was “robbed of a touch of class.” Another said, “If ever there was [an] establishment which bore the taste, the vision, the touch and personal image of its owner, then it was Nathans. It was Howard Joynt’s place, and there was no mistaking that.… With his graying, slicked-back hair, the sweater thrown over the shoulders, he often looked like he just came back from the country and was on his way to the bank, with a good glass of wine waiting for lunch.” They noted he was a generous tipper, too, and the son of Howard and May Joynt, “collectors of 18th century American furniture and art.” They mentioned his schools: St. Stephen’s, Choate, the University of Pennsylvania, and Georgetown University. I filled the biggest reception suite of Gawler’s funeral home with bouquets of his beloved daffodils—every last one that could be found in Washington in February. His mahogany urn rested on a table, a photo of his eighteen-foot sailboat, the
Carol Ann
, beside it. The room was packed with people, a crush to the walls, with the hum and verve of a festive cocktail party.
    Back at home it was a different story. On Howard’s desk was the six-inch stack of bills that had arrived during the three weeks of the hospital vigil. All things financial—bills, banking,