1 The Survivors Jeanie Henry had been gone a year now, but Jeanie would never forget the moment he died, how the bed became lighter, his soul floating upward like a white balloon. She felt it, as though someone''s hand had pressed down on the mattress, indenting, then releasing it again. A guardian angel, maybe. But Henry didn''t believe in such stuff. "I believe in the IRS," he liked to say. "And I believe in staying one foot ahead of the bastards." Jeanie knew now that death was faster than the IRS because Henry Munroe had disappeared from the breakfast table, the supper table, the leather recliner, the bathroom, the workshop in the garage. He had disappeared forever.
But that morning he died, maybe the very second it happened, Jeanie had felt a tremor of movement in their bed, a quick shudder. Henry''s heart! was her first thought. Henry having a heart attack had been a worry for months, ever since the doctor told him his cholesterol was dangerously high. But Henry had refused to change his diet of fast-food burgers and greasy fries. Jeanie could monitor what he ate at home, but each time he walked out the door Henry was a free man, responsible for his own behavior. And this had been his handicap. They''d been married for twenty-three years, and that was Jeanie''s next thought. Twenty-three years.
She opened her eyes then and saw the thread of dawn uncurling along the windowsill. Without looking, her own heart fluttering, she reached a hand over and touched the side of Henry''s face. It was cool, damp almost, and beneath the skin there was a stiffness, as though boards were there holding up the frame of his body, the shell of his life. A fresh stubble of beard had grown during the night, his body still trying in its primitive way to protect his face from the elements. But his body itself had been the enemy, or at least it had turned into the enemy, storing all that cholesterol in its arteries. "Henry?" Jeanie had asked. "You okay?" When he didn''t answer, didn''t move, didn''t even breathe, she had reached for the lamp on her nightstand and snapped it on. Then she picked up the phone and quickly dialed 911.
"My husband''s had a heart attack," Jeanie told the distant voice who answered the call. And that''s when the truth washed over her, her eyes filling quickly with tears. All the time she gave directions to the house, gave her name and then Henry''s, she didn''t look at him once, there on his side of the bed, as if he might be sleeping in late as he often did on lazy Sundays. Jeanie thought that if she looked at Henry, especially when she said the words, "I think he''s dead," that this would make it true. It would seal his fate. And she didn''t want to do that if there was still a chance. They could work miracles these days with all that fancy technology. That''s what she kept reminding herself as she waited for the ambulance, as she listened to the kind voice on the other end of the line telling her, They''ll be there soon, Mrs.
Munroe. Stay on the phone with me. Try to be calm now. They could even bring people back from long, winding tunnels, folks who had clinically died. And Henry was young, not yet forty. Maybe they could still save him. Jeanie had lain back on the bed, phone still to her ear, and put her head on Henry''s stiff arm. This was the way they used to sleep in those first, sexy years of marriage.
It occurred to her that this might be the last time she would be able to do so. In those minutes before they took Henry Munroe away, she wanted to get all of him that she could. She wanted to imagine that their lives were just beginning, that those seconds left between them were little lifetimes. She tried to think of what Henry would say about this scene, if he could see it, if he were hovering up at the ceiling somewhere, looking down. Just the notion of it would make him laugh: Jeanie, of all people, being appointed by fate to find her dead husband first. Jeanie, who was afraid of spiders, and the dark, and of any suggestion to stray even slightly from the missionary style of lovemaking in all those years of their marriage. It would take time, Jeanie knew, that morning she lay next to her dead husband, tears running down the sides of her face and onto Henry''s cold arm. It would take time.
She had given answers to all the questions she was being asked about her husband, questions that seemed so distant from the man himself-no pulse, no heartbeat-questions she answered without checking his cold wrist, without putting her ear to the silent drum of his heart. She knew the answers. And as much as she tried to stay there in the present, she couldn''t stop her mind from rushing ahead, from giving her a glimpse into the rest of her life. Yes, it would take time to get used to certain words and phrases: My husband died last month. Widow. My husband has been dead for five years. Beneficiary. But that''s how it was when they''d gotten married, back in 1980, the same year Ronald Reagan became the fortieth president of the United States, and Jimmy Carter took Rosalyn and went back to Georgia.
Jeanie had said the new words and phrases then, learning them easily as the years unfolded: We''ve been married just a month. Husband. We''re celebrating our fifth anniversary. Wife. The words and phrases of change. And that''s when it occurred to her that she would have to break the news to the kids. Lisa now lived down in Portland with her new husband. And Chad, poor Chad, was still only fifteen and worshipping every move Henry made.
Jeanie had wanted to tell the woman on the phone other things about Henry Munroe, that morning he died. "He doesn''t have a heartbeat, but he''s got a sense of humor that won''t quit. His favorite food is spaghetti and meatballs. He stills listens to the Beatles, and he loves the Red Sox almost as much as he used to love me." Those were the things you should know about a person before they leave the earth for good, at least as Jeanie saw it. You should know the important things about them, to prepare them for their journey, the way Egyptians put the items a king loved in his pyramid so that he could still enjoy them. If Henry had been an Egyptian king, he probably would''ve wanted Evie Cooper in his pyramid. That way, the two of them could row down the Milky Way for all eternity.
It was only after she had heard the wail of the siren in the distance, imagined the ambulance careening past the shade tree on Elm Street, imagined it cutting the corner on Webb Drive, its red light splashing around and around inside the glass dome, as if someone were shaking a jar full of blood, that Jeanie put the phone back on its cradle. She turned her head so she could look once more at her husband''s face. Already his skin had begun to turn a grayish blue, and his eyes seemed to be searching for something on the ceiling. They were open and unmoving, the way he stared at baseball players during the World Series, or hockey players in those last seconds of overtime. It was probably how he stared at Evie Cooper''s breasts that first night he saw her at Murphy''s Tavern, back when the affair started. Jeanie had found the receipt from the Days Inn, room 9, which Henry had forgotten to destroy. Habit did him in, for Henry always kept his receipts for tax purposes. I believe in the IRS, and I believe in staying one foot ahead of the bastards.
Jeanie had cried then, too, a full week of pans being banged about in the kitchen sink. But all Henry had said was, "Is it that time of the month already?" And for too many nights to count, she sat in front of the TV for an old movie, falling asleep on the sofa rather than next to Henry in their warm bed. But Henry, being a man, had taken the gesture at face value. "You fall asleep again watching movies?" was all he had said the next morning. That''s when Jeanie decided not to tell him what she had found, not yet. She would gather her evidence for divorce court, would do her homework, prepare her case. And for weeks, she had done that. She had stockpiled the receipts, even those from the local IGA for bottles of wine and bouquets of precut flowers.
She had smelled the perfume in his shirts, had noted the way he always put on clean underwear just to go to Murphy''s and watch baseball with Larry. And then, when she was finally ready to lay the deceit at Henry''s feet, she had opened her eyes to what would be the last day of her life with him. It had been twelve long months, and yet it seemed only yesterday that she heard the ambulance shriek into the driveway, excited voices filling the yard. That was when Jeanie Munroe leaned over and kissed her husband''s cold lips for the last time, at least in their marriage bed. She wanted to say important things, the things a person hopes to say in times of crisis, she wanted to say, Sweetie, go to the light. Go to that bright tunnel. Do you see your grandmother waiting for you? Take her hand, Henry honey, it''ll be okay. But that''s not what Jeanie had said to her dead husband.
When she heard the medics thumping on the front door, anxious to get inside with their marvelous technology, anxious to bring another stray soul back from a warm tunnel of peace and tranquillity, Jeanie had looked over at Henry''s blue face and blue lips, his wide-open baby-blue eyes, and she had whispered, "Why did you do it, Henry?" That was when Jeanie Munroe finally admitted the truth, her stomach muscles cramping with tension, her breasts aching, her heart hurting her more than she had ever imagined. Henry''s dead! And that''s when she knew that what she had felt on the mattress, pushing it down gently so that Henry could fly up, up, and away, was guilt, that barnacle that had attached itself to Henry Munroe the very first time he ever opened the door of a motel room and then stood back so that a woman other than his wife could sashay past him. But now Henry Munro.