Dept. Of Speculation

36

Even the stars look different now. The girl is outdoorsy, the husband has told her. The wife keeps imagining the two of them going camping in the mountains. How he’d name the constellations one by one, the girl alert in her softest sweater, nodding, looking up at all that sky.

The adultery book says to say affirmations of some sort each day, about yourself or your marriage. The wife doesn’t like the ones that are suggested so she makes up her own.

Nerves of Steel

No favors for fuckers

The wife tries to repeat this to herself in the morning as she brushes her teeth. Sometimes she doesn’t manage it. Sometimes she pulls back her lips and looks at her bloodied gums instead.

One day in the Little Theater of Hurt Feelings the husband announces that he would like to try a separation. The wife is stunned. He has said nothing to her until now. But the shrink discourages it. “You might as well just get divorced,” she says. Later, the wife remembers that they are supposed to fly to Ohio in two weeks to see his family, the whole blond band of them. “I guess I’ll be skipping that trip,” she says. “No,” the husband tells her. “You should come.” She looks at him. “Why would I?” He waves his hand magnanimously. “Because we still are?” Married, he means.

What Rilke said: I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.

A year ago the philosopher’s brother died suddenly of an aneurism. He had a wife, no kids. He lived in Colorado and made wooden mailboxes that he sold through a catalog printed on newsprint. The next day, the philosopher flew to the little town where his brother had lived. He went to the lumber store with his sister-in-law and bought pinewood for the coffin. Then in his brother’s shop he drew a sketch on cardboard and began. After a few hours, she came out to watch him. He put a blanket around her, made her tea, but he didn’t try to make her go in. All night she watched him saw and hammer. We could see our breath, he said.

The wife sends a note to the philosopher at 2:30 in the afternoon. “I am very awake. Are you?”

“Maybe it’s you?” she thinks of writing to him.

Some mornings the wife goes to the philosopher’s house and sits in his kitchen with him. Together, they come up with a theory of everything. The air feels electrified. She keeps wanting to ask if he can feel it too or if it is just some kind of weather in her head. “Tell me the truth. Do I seem crazy?” she says. He makes her an egg, puts it down in front of her. He pauses for a long time, then shakes his head. “You seem very, very awake,” the philosopher says.

She imagines how she would feel at his funeral. How she would feel at the husband’s. She puts her hand over her heart for a moment and leaves it there. Yes, still beating.

What Martin Luther said: Faith resides under the left nipple.