Exposure

The house was too big for one person. I knew that. My kids knew it, too, and the neighbors, and all the people my husband Henry had met when he was alive. They told me so after the funeral, when they all came over to eat dry ham and tasteless beans.

I've been to my share of funerals, as anyone my age probably has, though often I don't know that yet another old acquaintance has passed except when I scan the obituaries in the morning paper. It's a morbid ritual, my daughter used to say, there's no point in it. She used to be right, but that was years ago, when she still lived here. Now it has a purpose, because people get lost over time; your relationship with them- however transitory, or permanent- is lost as your address is scribbled out in the little book of contacts, overlooked by the children as they make the solemn phone calls. I would have no other way of knowing.

Of course, if it's someone I haven't spoken to since I was young, I'm not sure why I want to have the knowledge. Maybe I feel like they deserve the attention now that they're gone. More likely, I just get a sense of victory that I wasn't the first to go, that I've held my claim on life longer than others.

It's a funny tradition, when you think about it: holding the reception for a funeral in the home of the person that's died. Sometimes they lived alone, which makes it an unnerving intrusion; all the people you loved and some of the people you were secretly indifferent about, crowded together in your living room after you're gone. Munching on undercooked food and having stilted conversations about how lovely you were, stories about your life that leave out all the bad parts.

And if you weren't the only person left in your house- if you had a family that's left shell-shocked and numb, a family that sits around staring into space looking nearly as dead as you- they have to suffer the hordes of people, people dressed in black who try to comfort them and don't know how to act, how exactly to take the fact that one day you were there and the next, you were not.

I must be making myself sound put-upon. I wasn't, really. It was a hassle to have a funeral reception just like it's a hassle to throw a party. The only difference was, I did none of the cooking and cleaning. I sat in my armchair and acted just as I would be if none of the mourners were there. They saw the blankness of my face and assumed, as it would be in any other situation, that the loss just hadn't hit me yet. Perhaps they're right. It hasn't, after all; I just don't know whether it's coming or not.

They said things to me gently, of course, and mostly as questions. "Won't you get lonely in a big old place like this?" or even "Where will you be moving?", like it was a given that I could no longer survive here. People assumed that staying would make it hard on me, like every speck of dust or fleck of lint was a little piece of Henry- a memory, but more importantly, a reminder.

When I tried to explain to my children, they didn't understand why I wanted to stay. They sat there on the edge of the couch, in expensive sleek looking clothes- they always wanted to live in a big city, or at least look like they were from one, and now they've got their wish. Jacob and Sarah, both looking so old and unrecognizable. Their faces were terse and I got the feeling that they were waiting for something, maybe a fat dramatic tear or a nervous breakdown, something they could relate to their friends over their glasses at a cocktail party. I couldn't explain it to them in any way that wouldn't sound twisted or senile of me, that I wanted to stay here because even if I'd lost the man who used to live in the house with me, at the least the house would be the same; at least the place itself could stay stable even when the people inside of it had gone.

I'm curious, sometimes, of how my children see me. I know what the mirror reveals: stooped posture, a stout middle, veins protruding in green and blue beneath the pale skin of my feet. Brown hair going white, eyes small and cloaked by wrinkles. My shapeless clothes, button-up shirts like a man's, khaki pants and black canvas shoes that both stretch to fit any size. What I don't know is how I look when I move, having never been filmed as far as I can remember, but I can imagine- a careful, limping walk, all my weight thrown onto one foot and my cane always waving in front of me. I feel unused to this aging body, able to move well in it only because this house has remained the same for so many years.

They might not have understood me, but they also didn't try too hard to change my mind. They had moved three hundred and forty-seven miles away, if you combined both their distances. Both had kids in high school that I hadn't seen since they were crawling, and Susie turned forty last month. I wondered if she worried about getting older, if she ran screaming from the mirror when she caught sight of the first gray hairs.

Of course, I'm twenty years older than her, so I can look at that and laugh. I can find something to laugh at anywhere; it's one of the things Henry taught me. And one of the things I miss about him. I miss him in a funny way, like he was just a friend I couldn't help but loving, because I knew him too well not to. I miss him like he was a painting that hung on the wall for a hundred years and was taken down, a blank space where something solid used to be. When he died, it wasn't unexpected. He was seventy-six and not in the greatest of health. I turned off the lamp that night, we went to sleep; I woke up and he didn't.

We were married before we could even drink, and we barely knew each other at the time- he was my way up into a rich family, when that sort of arrangement still happened; not exactly a storybook romance. The marriage ceremony was stiff and obviously false; like it were not just the flowers and figures on top of the cake made of plastic, but also the smiles flicking on and off of our faces and Henry's arms around me when we danced. Most of the service happened before I even entered.

When the organ blared and the wooden church doors were thrown open, the red path seemed to extend for miles. That walk was a blur of hot lights and people staring; all I could think while I stood at the altar mechanically reciting vows was how itchy the dress was. When I blinked up at Henry's face, sweating in his tuxedo and looking terrified, I wanted to feel guilty. All I could muster was pity for him. I'm sorry you have to do this, I was thinking, you should just wait for another girl (but one that loves you), I'm sorry, you don't know what you're getting into. His hands trembled when he put the gold band onto my finger. His face leaned toward mine (unexpectedly, I hadn't been listening) and he pressed his mouth to mine briskly, without grace, tasting like salt. I stepped back and smiled and there it was, my life handed to him and fastened with a keyless lock.

On the walk outside, I noticed for the first time how few people sat on my side of the church. Most of the luxurious pews, gleaming wood and red silk, were empty. My father nodded as we passed, but the gesture was for Henry. Both of my sisters and a few scattered aunts beamed as if making up for all the vacant space. On Henry's side were masses of people, mostly strangers but a few faces that looked familiar, or at least friendly. The downtown streets were rife with noise as we emerged outside. Henry took my hand and turned to watch as we descended the stairs. He was already doting over me like I was a child, but I didn't notice it then.

I'm not sure we ever got to a 'romance' at all; outside of the deeds necessary to create children, we were hardly affectionate. But he was kind and smiled a lot and we learned. We went on like that for years.

I was the logical person to speak at the funeral. I knew him the best, and the directors looked at me as a solid, composed sort of woman, not the type to choke up in the middle of giving the eulogy. But I wasn't sure what to say. All I really knew was that I needed to be honest. I told them about the last day Henry was alive, and if it came out sounding sentimental and maudlin, I suppose that's something widows are allowed to be.

I had been awake for a few hours, reading in the armchair; Henry was calling from down the hallway, but he didn't expect an answer. He was always coming up with new things to tell me, bits and pieces of trivia that he picked up from newspapers and television that we both promptly forgot about afterward. Henry was one of those people where just having someone listening was enough, knowing your words weren't entirely lost. You learn these things about people, whether you want to or not, and I knew just how Henry would round the kitchen corner, with a very small pivot of the hips. "It saves energy," he explained when he saw me smiling, as if he hadn't said this every day since we moved in after our honeymoon. Henry was all about conservation. He was thrifty that way.

Do I sound bitter? I did love Henry, and even the silly things he did seemed sweet and familiar on most days. I didn't care about him the way I probably should have, the natural result of an arranged engagement, but we spent a lot of time pretending that we cared more than we did. A few years into the act we found out that there were at least small things we could like about the other.

The closest we ever got to an 'I love you' where we meant it was when he got home from work every day, lips already open to impart to me the flood of information he had accumulated that day, blue eyes bright with eagerness that nothing else ever stirred in him. His hair, brown and lank, would be escaping from the gel he put in it each morning, and the color in his cheeks would be high. We would both laugh at the same time and when it got quiet, after that laughter, those were the tiny instants where our acting stopped and I thought we might really have a chance.

"Did you know," Henry had called to me after disappearing into the kitchen, "that sea turtles have an excess salt gland in their eyes? That's why it looks like they're crying." And I didn't know, so I smiled, even where he couldn't see me.

I didn't intend to turn into a recluse after he died. But it makes sense, when I think about it- I hardly had a life outside of Henry, as things used to go; the other young wives with rich husbands that I used to spend afternoons with had drifted apart from each other long before. With him gone, I had the house left, and all the things we had filled it with. I stayed alone mostly. I read magazines with recipes and advice that were equally unuseful, sometimes delving into the sordid lives of the famous, where the absurdity was strangely refreshing.

I opened the windows for fresh air and turned the lights off because I didn't need them, after all, despite the years of seething over Henry's disdain for electricity. I'd spent seven years like this, and I never thought it was strange or sad until today. I never stopped to consider what the people outside would think- I thought most of them had forgotten about me, or otherwise didn't care.

But this morning, there was a knock on the door. My mind leapt to someone stopping by for a visit, though there was no one I could remember who was left to do so. I suppose even in my isolation I hate to think that the only people who would knock are the church ladies in their nice dresses with grizzled curls, or middle-school children selling candy bars for some charity. But it was a teenager in her best Sunday clothes, taking a deep breath as she prepared to deliver her spiel for this religion or this fundraiser. The girl stood there on my porch in her crisp white shirt, pamphlets in hand, face expectant. The sweep of sunlight was so brilliant that I clenched my eyes shut and stumbled back.

She must have mistaken my movements for sorrow, and in a rush she glided forward and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry," she smiled, and looked at my dark room. I suppose she was wondering what lurked in the corners, what mysteries I had cloaked under all those shadows. I wanted to correct her and explain that I wasn't the fearsome recluse that children talk about in the schoolyard; I had no ill will to other people, I just liked it better on my own. But I might have been reading too much out of one sweep of her eyes, and I stayed silent as she asked, "Are you lonely?" I didn't know how to answer.

I stood there, dry lips opening and closing as if I were speaking without sound, and the pause pulsed into an awkward silence. Her fingers left my shoulder slowly, one at a time, and she leaned back against the doorframe as she held the stack of pamphlets out to me. "Here," she said. "Take one." I was expecting a tortured-looking man on the cross, a picture of the Bible; from the way she was dressed I thought perhaps she was a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness. Instead it was labeled with the name of a local charity and had a bullet-point list of "Ways You Can Help" as I unfolded the paper. I glanced up at her face, the confidence melting away into a sheen of nervousness.

"I'll come back tomorrow," she said, reaching behind her and fumbling for the doorknob. "I'm sorry to disturb you. Good afternoon, miss." She angled her body through the small gap between the screen door and the freedom of my yard, and with a nervous smile she pulled the door shut.

She was gone too quickly for me to reply, and the title 'miss' tacked to the end of her sentence startled me out of speaking. When I was young I was taught about the various respectful ways to address your elders, that the unmarried woman were 'Miss' and the married ones 'Mrs.', the men one general 'Mr.' no matter who they were. I don't know whether it's an oversight or out of tact that no one ever taught me what you'd say to a widow, someone who had a husband then lost him. Maybe I was a 'Miss' again. That was always a nice thing to be called. I started laughing, really laughing in a way I hadn't done in a long time, and I put the girl's pamphlet on the coffee table.

The entire exchange had happened so quickly that I thought maybe I had dreamed it; maybe this was my mind craving the sight of another person, conjuring up a hallucination to get what it knew I wouldn't provide. I hadn't even spoken to her. She'd had a nametag, one of those stickers with 'Hello My Name Is' printed in white letters at the top, but I hadn't read it. I could barely remember what her face looked like. I could only recall a long swath of blonde hair, so pale it was white in the sun.

I wasn't sure she'd keep her promise to come back tomorrow. I didn't have much money to donate, anyhow. But she'd seemed sweet- I suppose my awkward, stumbling movements were bound to worry even the best little salesmen, though it wasn't a product but rather a good cause she was selling; she didn't want your money, she wanted it to give to someone else.

I spent the rest of the day just as I would have if she had never appeared at my door, in a blinding flash of light and pleas to my better nature. I forgot about it until I saw her marching up the front lawn the next morning, as I peered through the living room window. I looked at my own bony hand- long fingers looking spindly and spiderlike-parting the curtains, and I thought maybe I had turned into that frightening old recluse. She hadn't seen me as she reached the front door with its peeling paint and knocked a few times; for a few moments I considered sitting down in the armchair and ignoring the noise. But she had made me a promise, even if I hadn't wanted it, and I knew if I let her walk away I'd be feeling guilty for days to come.

Her knock on the door was quieter this time, subdued; she must have suspected I was waiting for the noise, tense and still in my armchair. I let her wait a moment before I moved to open the door- I was in no hurry. I didn't resent the girl, or fear her, but I did fear what she might be able to do. She might persuade me to come out of hiding, to emerge into the world vulnerable and naked like I was a newborn. She might loop me into giving money, and doom me to newsletters and more pleas for help in the mail for the rest of my life. I swallowed all these fears and opened the door, relieved to find the sunlight had taken a break today; the sky was speckled with cotton clouds.

The girl stood there, the same clothes as yesterday but freshly washed and ironed; the edges looked crisp, less wilted from the heat than before. Her blonde hair pooled around her shoulders and she smiled at me, revealing even white teeth. I felt oddly like my mind was taking an inventory of her, listing details that I had failed to notice before. "Hello," she said. "Are you feeling better today?"

I hesitated. Pointing out that I hadn't been feeling bad yesterday seemed almost coldhearted. She must have thought she was on a mission to make a sad, lonely old woman happy, and I didn't have the will to break that delusion down. "Yes," I said finally, my voice rough as it came from a parched throat. "I am. I took a look at your pamphlet-" I took a quick look around, but even with glasses my vision was poor; I couldn't see where I'd put the thing in the darkness of my living room. "-but I'm not quite sure why you're here." I held back a wince as I realized how cold these words must have sounded- calculated, even, as if I'd sat pondering our meeting for hours yesterday after she'd gone.

"We're looking for both donations and assistance to help with our charity foundation," the blonde girl explained. Her voice was mechanical but tried not to be, the sound of a rehearsed spiel, with little of a salesman's personable charm in it. "I understand if money is tight right now; that's what I hear from a lot of people." I fought the urge to smile. Her every word dripped of youth, though I wasn't sure whether her comments on money still qualified as tactless or not; things had changed while I'd been holed up in that house. "But more than donations, we just want personnel. Volunteers to run meetings and help organize fundraisers. If you have some free time on your hands, would you like to join us?"

Her words pulsed at me, little waves that grew stronger and stronger until I was drowning in them. It was unsettling enough to go back into the world, to let myself stand exposed on the street and in the stores where other people could see me again, perhaps make snide comments on my outdated clothes or the stilted way I walked. That would have been hard enough, never something I would have wished on myself. But to go back and get sucked into helping, to smile hour after hour at ornery people who you'd forced charity from- it was difficult to breathe, suddenly. The heat swarmed me, filled my lungs; I clutched at the door frame and hoped she didn't think I was fainting.

"Here," she said gently, and I think she understood. "Come with me, just for now. You can come to the central office and talk to Anne; she can explain it better than me. We'd like to have you helping us. You seem like the perfect person for the job." The girl reached for my hand, and I was both startled by her forwardness and in admiration of it; it's a quality I never had, or rather was never allowed to have. She pulled me forward, gently, to the edge of the door and then- in a blink, before I could understand what I was doing, what was being done to me- we were outside. It was eerie, how soft that place felt. How quiet it was.

I had missed the feeling of sunlight.

We crossed the overgrown yard, stepped onto the asphalt, warm and firm beneath our shoes. I turned around and looked up at that house, too big for one person, whose locks on me had broken. Its walls did not press on me anymore.