Book Two, Prologue: Searching
(NOTE: I haven’t posted any photo of Ernie or Ernestina, which are nicknames, on medium.com or google, so any photo showing up is not a photo of either of us.)
My previous book, Ernie and Ernie: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife, which covers my…
Book Two, Chapter 68: A Birthday
It’s my birthday. I’m sixty-three.
For a celebration lunch, Joshua and I head to a French bistro located in a converted carriage house just east of downtown.
Yesterday he took the day off from house-repair work, but I didn’t.
“I scrubbed the kitchen ceiling…
Book Two, Chapter 67: Work, Work, Work
I’ve been accepted into a local university’s depression study. In two days I’ll have my first session with a cognitive-behavior therapist.
In ten days I’ll be in my attorney’s office answering questions posed by opposing counsel in my wrongful-death lawsuit against Ernie’s urologist.
…
Book Two, Chapter 66: Sexual Illiterates
It’s Valentine’s Day. Perhaps this is why I’m thinking of sex. Sex in love.
Even though Ernie was in a relationship in college that led to an engagement and was in two marriages before ours, he didn’t fully understand how a woman feels sexual…
Book Two, Chapter 65: Solitary Confinement
Joshua and I are in my living room, a room he doesn’t like to be in. I’ve finished the work on his tax return, and he’s signed it. It’s ready to be mailed.
“You will put an extra stamp on that before you mail…
Book Two, Chapter 64: Scorch Marks
“It really hurt when my grandmother died,” Joshua tells me. “She liked me. I spent most of my time with her. Her love was unconditional, non-judgemental. She was a good sport. All of a sudden there was no one to watch Dukes of Hazzard…
Book Two, Chapter 63: Arise! Arise! Arise!
I never felt envy before Ernie died, but now, when I pass houses that make sense and are well-kept, with a porch light on, I feel envy at the contented couples or the serene households within.
On my walk to Charles Street today…
Book Two, Chapter 62: A Letter to Joshua
I write a letter to Joshua. I tell him I can’t live with my pain. I tell him I’m sorry to have let him down and to have missed so much of his life. I tell him not to bury my ashes at Cave Hill. I don’t want any of me around. I say to him: I can’t live with myself.
I’m scared. Am I going to kill myself? I don’t know, but it’s what I think about, what I visualize. A butcher knife. My left wrist.
Book Two, Chapter 61: Festering
David delivers mail to my building. In our occasional talks in the mail room or by his mail truck, I’ve come to realize he’s a wise man.
“I don’t like anything to fester in my heart,” he says to me today. “Any little thing that…
Book Two, Chapter 60: Ernie’s Army Coat
I don’t know how I’ll ever organize this writing.
It’s all in longhand. I just pile chapter atop chapter. Stacks of chapters surround me. I’ve finally begun to date and staple each chapter so at least I know the order of them. At…
