Late Stories. Stephen Dixon

       Wife in Reverse

      His wife dies, mouth slightly parted and one eye open. He knocks on his younger daughter’s bedroom door and says “You better come. Mom seems to be expiring.” His wife slips into a coma three days after she comes home and stays in it for eleven days. They have a little party second day she’s home: Nova Scotia salmon, chocolates, a risotto he made, brie cheese, strawberries, champagne. An ambulette brings his wife home. She says to him “Wheel me around the garden before I go to bed for the last time.” His wife refuses the feeding tube the doctors want to put in her and insists she wants to die at home. She says “I don’t want any more life support, medicines, fluid or food.” He calls 911 for the fourth time in two years and tells the dispatcher “My wife; I’m sure she has pneumonia again.” His wife has a trach put in. “When will it come out?” she says, and the doctor says “To be honest? Never.” “Your wife has a very bad case of pneumonia,” the doctor in ICU tells him and his daughters the first time, “and has a one to two percent chance of surviving.” His wife now uses a wheelchair. His wife now uses a motor cart. His wife now uses a walker with wheels. His wife now uses a walker. His wife has to use a cane. His wife’s diagnosed with MS. His wife has trouble walking. His wife gives birth to their second daughter. “This time you didn’t cry,” she says, and he says “I’m just as happy, though.” His wife says to him “Something seems wrong with my eyes.” His wife gives birth to their daughter. The obstetrician says “I’ve never seen a father cry in the birthing room.” The rabbi pronounces them husband and wife, and just before he kisses her, he bursts out crying. “Let’s get married,” he says to her, and she says “It’s all right with me,” and he says “It is?” and starts crying. “What a reaction,” she says, and he says “I’m so happy, so happy,” and she hugs him and says “So am I.” She calls and says “How are you? Do you want to meet and talk?” She drops him off in front of his building and says “It’s just not working.” They go to a restaurant on their first real date and he says “The reason I’m being so picky as to what to eat is that I’m a vegetarian, something I was a little reluctant to tell you so soon,” and she says “Why? It’s not peculiar. It just means we won’t share our entrees except for the vegetables.” He meets a woman at a party. They talk for a long time. She has to leave the party and go to a concert. He gets her phone number and says “I’ll call you,” and she says “I’d like that.” He says goodbye to her at the door and shakes her hand. After she leaves he thinks “That woman’s going to be my wife.”

       Another Sad Story

      He gets a call. It’s a sheriff in California. He has some very bad news for him. His daughter’s been involved in a serious automobile accident. It was on a narrow two-lane road by the ocean. She apparently overcorrected her steering too much to avoid hitting an oncoming car in her lane and went over an embankment. “Yes, yes, is she alive?” “I don’t know how to put it. I’ve never had to tell this to a parent. She died in the ambulance taking her to the hospital.” He puts down the receiver. What to do? He has to call his other daughter. He should tell his wife first. But his wife’s dead, so what’s he thinking? His sisters. One of them, who can tell the other. He’ll do nothing. He’ll lie on his bed and go to sleep. First he should put the cover over his typewriter. No, don’t even do that. He pushes the cover off his bed and lies down and closes his eyes. The phone rings and he gets up to answer it. Probably his older daughter saying she got back to L.A. okay and something about the interview she had in Berkeley. It’s the sheriff. “You hung up before I could finish. I wanted to tell you how to reach me, where we are, what hospital your daughter’s at and some of the things you or someone you designate to represent you need to know and do.” “I’m to fly out there. I haven’t been on a plane in almost fifteen years. I understand flying is much different today. The preparations at the airport and long waits and so forth. I’ll get a pencil. A pen, I mean. I always have one on me. I’m a writer. What’s a writer without a pen? But for some reason I have none in my pants pockets and one isn’t on my dresser. That’s where I am now. In my bedroom. I was working here, which I also use as my study,