ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 91: An Unanswered Question

Last night when Joshua dropped me off after our workday at Charles Street, he said: “I’m taking tomorrow off. You take tomorrow off, too.”

Today he’s watching tournament basketball with his two uncles. They’ve become family.

I’m happy Joshua’s found comfort with his two uncles, but it won’t last forever. The day will come when he feels suffocated, but for now he likes living with them — watching basketball, talking sports. Kidding each other. Sharing food.

I don’t take today off. Instead I head over to Charles Street. It’s raining, but my leather jacket and biker cap protect me. I finish painting the kitchen, then move to the bathroom and spackle two holes under its hexagon window where a towel rack had hung. “I don’t want a towel rack under that window,” Joshua said the other day. “It takes away from the window.”

A refrigerator will be delivered on Tuesday, so I clean and wax the vinyl floor where the refrigerator will stand. I think about cleaning and waxing the whole floor, but I stop myself. In the old days I would have finished the floor, but now I try to leave energy for the next day. I don’t want to deplete myself.

I turn off the lights, lower the blinds, lock the back door, put on my jacket, hat, scarf, and gloves. But I don’t want to leave this house. Not just yet.

Where’s Ernie? If he were alive he’d come by for me. He’d praise the painting, all the repair work.

Tomorrow I’ll talk again with my therapist, Jene. He’ll ask me what the “issues” were in my marriage. I’ll say: There was only one. We didn’t turn ourselves inside-out to the other. We didn’t know to do this.

He’ll ask: Did you love Ernie?

What will I say?

I don’t know.