The Postmortal (16 page)

I sat staring at him. I didn’t know whether to hug him or punch him in the eye or raise a toast. He saw that I was at a loss.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to be flip.”

“It’s okay. I get it.”

“This is not a tragedy, John. It really isn’t. Death shouldn’t be some big tragedy anymore. I lived plenty, and everyone else is going to get to do the same now. Life is just right like this.”

“How long do you have?”

“A year, at most. I’m hoping it doesn’t play out that long. I’m going to throw away all the Christmas decorations after this year. I never want to string lights on a goddamn tree ever again.” He pointed to the tree. “All they have are these LED lights now. They’re awful. It’s like the tree was trimmed by an office lighting company.”

“Yes, but the tree can live forever now.”

“Who wants a tree that lasts forever?”

“Well, it makes oxygen.”

“Then I bequeath it to you. You may have my Forevergreen and all its precious oxygen. What do I give a shit?”

He poured a drink, and we settled into a night of conversation that was miraculous in its normalcy. I was alarmed at how quickly I was becoming comfortable with the notion of him being gone. He had convinced me so entirely, and it was clear that he didn’t want me moping about it. So I fell in line. I joined him in embracing the idea, perhaps as an easy way to avoid dealing with my own eventual grief. Like with my mom, I kept a positive outlook. The only thing different here was the desired outcome. I stared out the living room window. In the moonlight the trees were mere silhouettes, the outlines of the hundreds of branches flat and appearing to form the world’s most intricate transit map—one with a zillion destinations, all unmarked.

“You mind if I stay here an extra day or two?” I asked.

“What about that new girlfriend of yours? Don’t you have to get back to her?”

“She can wait.”

“Don’t make her wait too long. Not for my sake.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

I raised a glass.

 

If this law ends up applying to terra trolls, I’m 100 percent in favor of it. From WUSA via Spencer Hall’s feed:

My sister never comes into the city. She doesn’t want to deal with traffic or parking or even taking the train, even if it’s a relatively short trip. When I spotted her at Ocean Bar, she had ordered a bottle of wine for herself and had already drunk half of it. She looked exceptionally fragile.

“You heard about Dad?” she asked.

“Yeah. Of course.”

“He give you that whole spiel about how great his illness is?”

“Yes, and I have to say he was rather convincing. I take it you aren’t so giddy about it.”

“Eh, it’s not that. In a way I’m relieved. You know I’m a worrier, obviously.”

“Me too now.”

“Right. And he’s getting up in age. I know he had the cure, but even so. It had started to weigh on me, what his fate was gonna be. And it’s just another goddamn thing. At least now there’s some measure of certainty. And he seems okay with it. So I guess that makes it easier.” She took a piece of bread from the basket, tore it, and left one half on the bare white tablecloth while she gnawed on the other. I did likewise.

“Mom helped prepare me for this,” she said. “I mean,
nothing
will throw me off more than when she was dying. Having dealt with that makes it easier, in an odd way. I know what’s coming. I know how I’m going to feel. It’s almost like planning a birthday party. I can forget all about the emotional aspects of the event and get bogged down strictly in the coordinating. That’s the best way to grieve, you know. To become mired in logistics.”

“He talk to you about what he wants done with his body?”

“Yeah. He wants the same thing as Mom. Donate his body, throw his ashes in the ocean when we get them back. And thank goodness for that. I heard it costs twenty thousand dollars a year to keep someone buried in a cemetery now—which is just insane. You’d think they were teaching philosophy to the corpses.”

“Well, whatever happens we’ll get through it. If you need anything . . .”

She took a drink of wine and began weeping.

I tried reassuring her. “Polly, it’s gonna be okay.”

“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s Mark. He wants to convert to a cycle marriage. He wants to leave me ten years from now.”

“Oh no.”

“It’s awful. He hasn’t cheated or anything. He’s helped with the kids and been supportive of me—the night classes, the master’s degree, and all that. He’s never been anything but wonderful. And now this.”

“You don’t want it?”

She looked at me like I was a fool for asking. “Of course I don’t want it. He’s my husband, and I always want him to be my husband. That’s why I married him. I don’t care that we all got the cure. That’s not a factor for me. I love him. I was excited at the idea of seeing the kids fully grown and then having some real time with him. Traveling. Walking. All the stuff Mom and Dad did. I liked that idea. We could have even had another group of kids somewhere down the line. That’s what I loved thinking about. Now all I see is this ticking clock. It’s like he’s already left. I see him notice women on the street. He tries to hide it, but I know. It never bothered me before, because I knew he was just looking and nothing more. But now? Now it’s like seeing a dog trapped in a cage. I know he’s looking forward to life without me. I’m not even sure this is a marriage anymore.”

“What do the kids say about it?”

“We haven’t told them. They probably wouldn’t even hear me. They’d just go back to their tablets. You know they don’t want to finish high school? Jay walked right up to me the other day and told me he wanted to go to New Zealand next year. I asked for how long. And he said, oh, maybe a decade. A
decade
! He’s just casually tossing out the idea of a ten-year pit stop. I don’t even think he knows where New Zealand is. He just wants to go somewhere new to spend twenty hours a day pinging friends. I bet he could be there for ten years without noticing the sheep.”

“Well, that’s a big thing now,” I said. “I read about how all the college enrollments are way down and kids are putting everything off.”

“Exactly, and who ends up screwed in the process? Parents like me. Because now I have an extra fifty years to fret over these kids getting a proper education. I’m telling you, John, it’s a train wreck. And now I’ve got my husband asking to be single again. I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready to be a postmarried person. It’s . . . it’s fucking
weird
.”

“Then fight for him. Tell him you want him to stay. I know when you tell me to do something, I listen.”

“It’s not so easy when every jackass at Mark’s work is negotiating cycle marriages. I’m not blaming you for that, mind you. If your bosses hadn’t invented it, someone else would have. These men are going completely bonkers over it. Last week we were invited to a divorce party. Again,
weird
.”

“Did you go?”

“God no! I had to shower for forty minutes after looking at the invite. I know the woman getting the divorce: Karen Welsh. She did
not
want that divorce to happen. So the idea that she’s going to be forced to sit there with some bullshit smile on her face, pretending it’s Independence Day? Yuck. I’d feel more comfortable at a key party.”

“See, I would have gone. At least it’s not some boring regular cocktail party. At least there’s some sort of interesting, awkward dynamic to it.”

“But these are people’s lives being ruined, John. Do you really find it so amusing? What will you say when I have to invite you to my divorce party?”

I stared down at the crumbs and little stains around my place setting. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“It’s not funny. Ten years from now, I won’t have a family anymore. I’ll be forced to start over. At fifty-four.”

“But your cure age will be thirty-five.”

“Oh, like that’ll help. You watch. Thirty-five-year-olds are about to become the new senior citizens. I’ll be the youngest old maid on earth.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

“I want the family I already have. Yes, they annoy the hell out of me sometimes, and sometimes I’d like to be airlifted out of my house and flown to Italy for a month alone, with some beefy guy named Gianni hand-feeding me grapes. But that’s what you sign up for when you have a family. That’s part of the whole package. I don’t mind that kind of angst. It’s better than starting some new, weird family every time the century turns. I don’t want that, John. I want everything I had before all this began.”