Relax

The day after my vasectomy, Diane bounced through the door with a copy of Norman Dacey’s How to Avoid Probate. That afternoon, while I convalesced at home with a bag of frozen peas, she went to an estate planning luncheon. 

“We can set up a living trust and save tons of money!” she said. 

“Prostate?” I asked.

“Probate, silly,” she said. 

$5,000 later, we had this huge binder of incomprehensible documents. 

Diane was a runner. I liked that she had her own thing apart from us. She did races all the time. Sometimes, they’d be in these exotic places. One time, she ran around this big crater in Oregon filled with blue water. She had a few running buddies in her group—Lucy, Derek, and Sara. I think they all went to that estate planning thing together too but I didn’t ask. 

About a year ago, Diane went for a night run. She was wearing all black. I told her it was a bad idea, but she told me to relax. “Relax,” she said. I trusted her. She had a way of making me — and any other guy for that matter — melt with this one look. “Relax,” she said. That was the last thing she said to me. When the deputy arrived a few hours later, I already knew what had happened. 

Losing Diane cut me deep. I’ll never get over Diane. When she died, it was like the sun stopped shining. It rained everyday. It was like any light in the world swirled around my dirty toilet bowl existence and got flushed away to oblivion, never to return. 

At first I pretended that it never happened, that maybe she was just out for a run and would come back. The vodka helped with that, until it didn’t. After a while, I just sat in the house fuming mad at her for running that night, pissed at myself for not making her change clothes, and furious at the uninsured geezer that shouldn’t have been driving after hours on an unlit road in the first place. 

Then, the insanity crept in. For a time, I couldn’t tell the true from the false. I knew I was totally losing it when began watching Neil Degrasse Tyson’s time travel lectures on repeat. I crafted an elaborate plan to travel back in time so I could stop her from running that night. I mean, if Marty and Doc could do it, there had to be a way. It didn’t work.

And then, a cloud of depression settled on me for the summer and the summer became the fall. I guess I was coming to the end of this thing my therapist called grief. I call it darkness. I call it misery.

A few weeks ago, I opened that estate binder that Diane bought for us. I still couldn’t understand a word of it, so I took it to the lawyer who drafted it. The lawyer sent me to a banker, who was the trustee. The banker told me that the account had been depleted and balance was at zero. Apparently, the lawyer failed to tell Diane that the trust account cost more to manage per year than we had been depositing into it. So, yes, Diane was right. We spent nothing on probate, but we ended up giving our savings away.

I put our house on the market. It seemed like the right thing to do because it was too much house for one person and everything in the place reminded me of her—the purple drapes, the crystal chandelier, the wainscoting, and her Marie Kondo folded t-shirts that still sat at attention in her dresser drawer. And, thanks to Norman Dacey, I couldn’t afford to live there anymore either. 

A steady diet of Cheetos and depression made for a messy house. I had to start cleaning up if I wanted to have a prayer at selling the place. I spent a few weekends taking on projects, like cleaning the siding, improving the landscaping, and cleaning out the closets. 

Last week, I was sweeping under the bed and I came across one of Diane’s old grocery lists. Diane liked to make lists. Seeing her handwriting made my heart sink. Kneeling there in the dust, I burst into tears. I imagined, for a brief moment, that she was here. “Relax,” she whispered in my ear. My tears and snot made the ink on the list run a little, but not too bad. 

“Oatmeal” topped the list. Diane made this steel cut oatmeal with dried cherries in it and let it slow cook overnight. Steel cut oats smelled like home, even though I didn’t like the dish as much as she did. 

“Tampons” was next. If she needed tampons when she wrote this list, chances are we had a fight. “Sorry, Diane,” I said aloud. “Relax,” she whispered.

“Coffee” was third. Diane had good taste in coffee. She knew the difference between Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Aged Sumatra. I couldn’t tell the difference. It was all too bitter for me. I’m a Folger’s guy. Every morning, as I sipped my instant coffee, she looked down her nose at me, but she did it so sweetly. “Relax,” she said. 

“Green Goddess Dressing” was next. I never liked this dressing, but Diane swore by it. I don’t think it was the taste I disliked as much as the name. She told me that the name came from some play from the 1920s set in San Francisco or something, but it all seemed a little too pretentious to me. 

“Condoms” was last. I put the list to the side and continued to sweep out the dust from under the bed. 

We buried Diane just a mile from the house. It was six months before I could even visit her grave without looking like a sniveling idiot. The springtime helped, I guess. A year later, it still hurt, but it wasn’t completely debilitating. So, after a day of cleaning house, I wiped the dust from my knees and took a stroll.

As I walked, I rubbed my thumb over her list. I missed her so much, too much. Maybe I’d try making some steel cut oats, just for the smell. I thought about stocking up on the Tampax Pearls she used to get, but that would be weird. Maybe I’d get a Yukon Blend or a custom roast next weekend. But Green Goddess Dressing—no way. 

The condoms on her list made me wonder. Was I ready to try dating again? I mean, it had been a year and all. Mary Celeste was nice. Maybe I’d ask her out to a movie. Diane hated going to movies. Diane and I never used condoms, either. She was on the pill until I got snipped. "Huh." “Relax,” she said.

I sped up, as if going to her grave would explain why she had condoms on her list. A few yards into my blitz, I slowed. I mean, there was no way she was cheating. That would be silly. She loved me and trusted me and would never do that. 

I arrived at the graveyard and walked the tiny hill to her grave. The landscapers had come through recently, but the leaves had freshly blanketed the grounds. Shuffling along the half crisp, half wet leaves, I arrived. There she was. Diane McGee Latham: 1989 - 2018 Loving Wife and Friend to All. 

“Hey, D. Just wanted to say hi. I’m selling the house. I was cleaning up and I found this,” I said. 

I held up the list for her to see, as if she were sleeping just below the ground and could awaken for a sec, tell me what was up, and go back to sleep.

In the distance behind me, I heard jogging footsteps crunching fallen leaves. I turned and saw Derek.

He jogged up to her grave stone. When realized it was me standing there, he recoiled a bit in surprise. Breathing heavily, he looked distracted and confused, like he didn’t know what to do with his arms, like he couldn’t get comfortable. 

“Hey, Dave,” he said. “How’s things?”

“Better,” I said. “How ya been?”

Derek just stood there. Tears welled in his eyes. 

“Look man, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he said.

He didn’t need to say a thing. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. 

“Relax,” I said.

Derek blushed, turned his head, and sprinted through the dead, wet leaves.