Final Affairs

Content warning: violence, language, allusion to suicide.

DECEMBER 21

I am the only one who knows. This is our family’s last Christmas together. None of them would be all that surprised, but it is not for the reasons they think. I am eighty-nine years old. Roselyn is eighty-seven. She is not well. That is why we are gathered here today in this stale, lifeless gathering room in some forgotten back corner of Magdalene Assisted Living. I cannot care for Roselyn any longer, and she has long been unable to care for herself.

I dig my thumb into my breast pocket to make sure the letter is still there. The paper is fine and fragmented, torn a bit around one corner. This one was the worst of them. The one that left no doubt. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to read it out loud. Would it shatter all of them like it shattered me? To learn that this is all a lie. A façade of a family, masquerading as something real. I begin to lift the letter out of my pocket when my youngest, Allen Junior, interrupts.

“What you got there, Dad?”

“Oh, just a honey-do list for your mother, and some things that I need for the house,” I lie, quickly shoving the paper back into my pocket.

Allen’s wife Talia comes around behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders.

“Nonno, you know we can take care of that kind of stuff. Let me and Al do that for you.”

‘Nonno’ is the name my grandchildren gave me decades ago. I always suspected that Talia chose it for them, her being Italian and all, but I never minded it. Talia has always been sweet to me.

“No, that’s okay.” I try to sound convincing, hoping she won’t press the issue. “I need to stay busy. It keeps me young.”

Talia begins to protest when Rochelle, our oldest, comes bumbling into the room, her husband Barry in tow. They are carrying large brown bags filled with Christmas dinner from Bob Evans Restaurant. Two young children – my great grandchildren – follow them in and wander over to the dusty maple wood piano and begin to play discordantly. It isn’t music, but it fits the occasion.

Roselyn’s head rises slightly from the sounds of the toddlers banging on the keys. She is slumped over in her wheelchair in a pale pink polyester gown, limp and sagging, barely with us. For sixty-eight years she has been my one and only and the matriarch of this sprawling family. All of that was premised on a lie.

We never used to do Christmas Dinner this way. When Roselyn still had vigor in her bones, she used to lead a team of family cooks – too many cooks – in our kitchen, directing and coaching and prodding so that everything was just so. It was a warm and unruly family affair, and it used to be one of my favorite times of year. 

This year, like the past three years, we’re doing take-out. This is the first time we’ve had the meal at the nursing home rather than our house. More a prelude to death than a celebration.

The meal has all our Christmas staples: roast turkey, honey-baked ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, pecan and apple pies. It is what we always eat on Christmas, and it is fine as far as it goes, but it feels as inauthentic as we are. Takeout from a chain restaurant on December 21st at a nursing home is not Christmas Dinner, no matter how much we pretend.

“Hey kids, stop banging on that piano and go say hello to your great-grandmother.” Rochelle admonishes her grandchildren and flashes me a smile and a wink, her green eyes as luminescent as ever. Roselyn always insisted Rochelle’s eyes were blue like mine. She always teased me about being colorblind, and joked about how Allen Junior got my name but her brown eyes; whereas we named Rochelle for her, but she got my eyes.

We eat disjointedly and chaotically. There are probably close to thirty people in this meeting room, and there are not enough tables for all of us. Roselyn and I are seated together with Rochelle and Allen Junior. The rest of the family is splayed throughout the room, having their paper plate Christmas dinners on on couches and folding chairs and piano benches. Some of our great grandchildren are eating on the floor.

In years past, I would have said grace before the meal, but I guess they forgot to ask me this year. Probably for the best. I’m not sure I have it in me.

I engage in the appropriate great-grandfatherly niceties that are expected of a man my age. It is an easy part to play. The adults treat Roselyn and me more like toddlers than their elders.

Sometime after the meal, they all say their goodbyes and Merry Christmases and file out, leaving Roselyn and me alone with Rochelle and Allen Junior.

Rochelle, ever the optimist, can’t help herself. “You doing ok on your own, Dad? Maybe you should think again about moving in here with mom. You guys would do better together.”

Allen Junior echoes the sentiment. “Ro is right, Dad, we all live close by. We can take care of the house, and you know Talia loves the two of you like you’re her own parents. She would be here every day.” He pauses, as if reflecting, when Roselyn interjects.

“He dumped me here to get rid of me.”

These are the first words any of us have heard her speak today. Roselyn is bitter about being here, and that bitterness gives her brief flashes of lucidity. She’s wrong about my motives, of course, but I don’t blame her. Moving is hard at any age, but at eighty-seven and senile it was especially tough on her. Given the choice, everyone would rather die at home.

Rochelle scolds her, “Oh, you know that’s not true, Mom, be nice. This is hard on Dad too.”

Roselyn lets her chin fall back to her chest, waiting for one of us to wheel her back to her room and set her in front of the TV.

She is upset with me now, but I have a surprise in store for her.

DECEMBER 22

My routine is different this morning. I am not going to be in Room 203 at Magdalene Assisted Living by 10 AM. I didn’t tell Roselyn, but she wouldn’t have remembered anyway.

Instead, I drive my Ford pickup eighteen minutes southeast to the town of Autryville (population 168). There is not much to this town. Country roads, a fire station, several churches, a tire shop. I pull up to a little one-story brick house with white trim. An old silver Buick sits in the carport. A lonely flowering dogwood tree sprawls in the front yard, covering the view of the front door like the house has something to hide.

I pull out the letter from my breast pocket and read it again to myself to steel my nerve. I need to be angry for this. The man with the Buick and the dogwood tree wrote this letter to my wife seven months into our marriage.

The words hit me like a dagger, piercing my chest in fragmented waves. It is always as if I’m reading them for the first time. I never spoke to Roselyn like this.

You are my little fuckbird….

Nothing compares to the dirty look in your eyes when you arch

your back and look up at me, pounding you from behind….

…as I bend you over and fill you up, you’ll feel me in your ribs….

Then the worst of it, near the end…

I find my shelter in the hollow of your chest, Rosy. I love you. I’d

leave her for you. Say the word. I’m yours either way, but I need

you to know…

The letter was signed, simply, Jimmy.

I feel the anger rising as I thrust the letter back into my shirt. Heat flushes into my face, my chest tight like a drumhead ready to be beaten. I get out of the truck and reach under the seat for the Model 36 that my father gave me on my eighteenth birthday. Two trips to the gun range last week assured me that the old Smith & Wesson still fires straight and true.

I shove the gun into my waistband and pull my jacket down to cover the grip. I don’t plan to use it here, but better safe than sorry.

In the front of the house, three brick steps lead to a thin glass pane covering a solid white wooden door. A Christmas wreath is hung from the glass. The plastic doorbell is cracked and hollow. I press it, but I don’t hear anything inside. I open the glass door and tap the back of the wood four times with my knuckles. My hands are cold and my heart is racing.

I hear slow shuffling inside and take a step back. The wooden door creaks open and a man my age, smaller and feebler than me, peers out underneath a weathered bald forehead marked with sunspots and wrinkles. His features are withered and grey and defeated, except for his eyes, vibrant and green and piercing. Rochelle’s eyes.

I try to sound nonchalant and matter of fact.

“Hello. I’m looking for James Frederick. I understand he may live here.”

“Yessir.” The man’s voice is hoarse and higher than I expected. “That’s me. How can I help you?”

“I think you knew my wife. Her name is Roselyn.”

For an instant, his mouth goes agape, and his eyes glaze over, as if he’s looking at something far off, something not of this world. But he catches himself, and then looks straight at me, almost menacing.

I bring a hand up, as if to push him away.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble. I’ve known about you for a long time. I found the letters early in the marriage. Roselyn and I worked through it. We have five grandchildren and are expecting our ninth great-grandchild soon.”

The man in the doorway caresses his chin with his thumb and two fingers, eyeing me cautiously. From somewhere behind him, a shrill voice calls.

“Jimmy, who’s at the door?”

“It’s just a delivery driver, sweetheart. Wrong house. I’m going to step outside and point him the right way.”

I see Jimmy lies to his spouse, too.

He steps out of his home and directs me down the steps and into the front yard, next to the dogwood.

“Why are you here?”

“Roselyn is dying,” I tell him, not fully lying, though I make it sound more imminent than it is. “She asked after you. She wanted to see you one more time, to say her goodbyes.”

“And she sent you?” he asks, half-turned away from me, eyeing me cautiously. I wonder if he may be strapped too.

“Who else was she going to send? I am the only one who knows about you and her.”

“That was a long time ago, I don’t know that it’s a good idea.”

“Look, I’m just an old man trying to carry out my wife’s dying wishes. Here’s my number.” I pull out my wallet and hand him a card with my cell number on it. “She doesn’t have long left. We can go today, but if you want to sleep on it, you give me a call.”

He turns and walks up the steps and opens his front door. For a moment I think I may need to consider Plan B before he calls to his wife.

“Julie, I’ve got to run into town for a few things. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

He doesn’t wait for her response before shutting the door and turning back to me.

“You said we can go today. Now?”

“I can take you there directly.”

“Ok, let’s go.”

 The drive is solemn and silent. There is no small talk to be made between a husband and the man who fucked his wife sixty-five years ago.

I pass the turnoff for the nursing home and continue north onto highway 210. Ahead to the right is a dilapidated, abandoned motel. The navy sign still rises high above the rest of the town, displaying the motel's name - The Scottish Inn - in dirty white lettering. Years have passed since any guests occupied the rooms. I pull into what’s left of the motel’s parking lot, now cracked concrete covered in weeds.

Jimmy shuffles in his seat uneasily.

“She’s…here!? She wanted to meet me here!?”

I can feel his eyes, my daughter’s eyes, staring incredulously at me.

“For old time’s sake,” I say, without looking back at him. “I guess this place was pretty special for you two. This is where she wanted to do it.”

I park in the back of the motel and direct him to get out of the truck. The place is deserted, and he is rightly skeptical, but he obliges.

“In there,” I say, and direct him to Room 117. “It’s unlocked. I’ll wait out here and take you back after.” He stares at me, still disbelieving, but I can see the gears churning.

“Alright,” he says, and slowly walks toward the door.

The handle does not give when he tries it. He turns back to me, and I am already beside him, the barrel of the 36 Classic a foot from his face. How quickly I become unhinged.

“You stupid son of a bitch!” She is my wife. You defiled my wife! My marriage! The sanctity of my home!”

He is too old and slow and weak to flee, so he stands there with the same blank, astonished expression he made when I first mentioned Roselyn’s name outside his house.

I fire four times into his face. His blood spatters back on me, and he collapses into the door.

I get back into the truck and drive home.

DECEMBER 23

Today’s routine is different as well, and I’ll be late to Roselyn again, just like yesterday. She won’t remember.

I pull into the lawyer’s office and reach into the truck’s console. $1,500 in one-hundred-dollar bills is folded neatly into a black money clip. I hope that this is enough for my purposes. I grab it and the accordion file in the passenger seat, and head inside.

The lawyer I’ve chosen advertises $599 no-contest, no-fault divorces on a billboard on I-95 . I hope this means he’s a man who values efficiency as much as I do. When I am called in to his office, I don’t wait for him to introduce himself.

“I need a draft of a divorce complaint today, in my hand, before I leave. It doesn’t have to be perfect, or anything you’d be willing to file, but I need it done today.”

The lawyer, probably as greasy as the shine from his hair gel, is curious.

“We don’t really work like that, sir. There’s a lot of information we have to gather first, to make sure our ‘i’s are dotted and our ‘t’s are crossed, you understand?”

I toss the $1,500 in the clip onto his desk.

“You normally do this for six, right? That’s fifteen hundred there. I know you’re a volume business. This is a divorce factory. You can have a paralegal draft it, and we can iron out the details later. I am almost ninety years old. I want to get this done.”

“Even if you serve it today, it probably won’t be effective. There are separation requirements….”

I cut him off.

“Don’t worry about that. Just a draft. We’ll iron out the legalese later.”

“Alright sir, hold on.”

For the next two hours I sit with his paralegal and answer her questions. It is simpler than I imagined, and they need almost none of the documents in my file. When we’re finished, I have a signed, notarized, two-page Complaint for Absolute Divorce in the District Court of Cumberland County.

On my way out, the billboard lawyer cautions me, “We’ll need to make another appointment to finalize that before we can serve and file it. Don’t serve it or take it to court yourself. You understand, sir?”

“I got it, and I won’t. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

--

It is 2 PM by the time I make it to Roselyn. She is where she always is. Slumped lifelessly in her recliner in front of her television. I take a seat next to her, a few sheets of mismatched papers in my hand. I lean in close. This will be quick.

“Sweetheart, I have something for you. Last week, I was cleaning out our bedroom closet and your old jewelry box fell from the shelf. A drawer on the back that I never knew about popped open, and a bunch of papers spilled out. This one is my favorite.”

I put the fuckbird letter from Jimmy in her lap.

Her dead eyes flash life for an instant.

“I’m sorry, Allen. I should have thrown those out. You shouldn’t have had to find out like that. Or ever.”

“Rochelle isn’t mine, is she?”

Her eyes dull back over. She doesn’t answer. She turns her head back to the TV and stares through it.

“Anyway,” I say, “I have something else for you. Merry Christmas.”

I place the Complaint for Divorce on her lap on top of Jimmy’s letter and walk out of the room.

--

When I get back into my truck, a light snow has begun to fall, rare for this part of the state so early in the winter. I reach under the seat and grab the 36 Classic. For the first time, I let my rage subside into sorrow, and feel the hot tears flush down my cheeks. The cylinder holds five rounds. There is one left.

~~