The Folded Clock: A Diary

Chapter 47: August 19

Today I met a reclusive writer/editor who lives in our town. I’ve been hoping to meet him for years. The closest I’ve come to meeting him is seeing his name written on the DRY CLEANING READY list they tape to the cash register of the general store when the shirts come in.

I finally met him not at the general store but at the boatyard. I was wearing a bathing suit and the writer/editor was fully clothed. It seemed inappropriate to be meeting this man in my bathing suit, primarily because this is not a dock where people are often seen wearing bathing suits, and secondarily because this man is ninety-seven years old. Plus my bathing suit is ridiculous on so many design levels; my left breast pops out when I shrug, or when I inhale, or when I put my hand on my hip. For swimming it is completely stupid, but it is a one-piece and thus more sensible than a bikini, and so it is the suit I wear when I swim to the Goodale buoy. Today this is what I intended.

I tried to cover myself with my arms as I shook this man’s hand; I told him how excited I was to finally meet him. I asked how much time he spent in Maine (as opposed to New York, where he also lived); he said he’d been here most of the summer. He made reference to the fact that, after the recent passing of his wife, Maine seemed the pleasanter place to be.

Coincidentally, three children and I had visited his wife’s grave earlier that day. We’d gone to the cemetery to bring flowers to a number of people: E. B. White and Katharine White; also the “youngest person in the cemetery” (given the youngest members tragically warranted little more than an INFANT tombstone, this superlative status proved impossible to determine); and the grave of the bootlegger whose name I stole to give to my daughter. I’d specifically shown the kids the writer/editor’s wife’s grave, because, since last summer, it was new. He had a matching grave beside hers. It was also new. I suggested his wife might qualify as the “youngest” in the cemetery (in that she was the newest member) and was probably deserving of flowers. She got some. Then the kids noticed that the writer/editor’s grave did not have a death date on it yet. I explained that this was because he was still alive. I explained that people sometimes buy and erect their tombstones before they die. This confused them. The existence of a tombstone for a not-yet-dead person wasn’t the source of their bewilderment. What bewildered them was the etiquette involved. They had put flowers on his wife’s grave. Should they put flowers on his grave too, even though he was not yet in it?

A brief discussion ensued. “It’s rude to put flowers on the grave of a person who’s not dead,” declared one kid authoritatively, putting the matter to rest.

I wanted to tell the writer/editor about our earlier visit to his wife’s and his future grave, but I wasn’t sure the story would come off as I wanted it to. Because I was wearing a bathing suit, I wasn’t confident in my ability to walk the line between respectful and inappropriate. Would it make him happy to know that a few strange children had, just two hours earlier, put flowers on his wife’s grave? Would he find it cheering or depressing to know that he had not met the requirements for flowers? I’d heard that he’d been bereft since his wife had died. That it was “a matter of time” before he joined her. I told him that we’d put flowers on his wife’s grave, but didn’t tell him that he had not yet qualified. Sometimes, I figured, people don’t need reminding that they are still alive.