ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife

Book One, Part One, Chapter 25: Nothing Lasts Forever

Carlyle Communications buys the Vincent Steele novel, and Ernie splits the pay with Andy, a thank-you for Andy’s plumping its opening chapter.

“But enough psycho-babble,” Ernie says. “My next novel for Carlyle will be a mystery. I’ve always liked mysteries.”

“A porn mystery?” I ask. Then add: “With a private dick?”

“More like a public one,” Ernie says.

Ernie names his detective Mike English. Mike’s clients are all beautiful, sexy women who hire him to find the missing person in their life. Or, Mike’s been hired to find the beautiful, sexy woman who’s gone missing. The novels — Chase the Merry Maiden, The Sensuous Rebel, Silky — are best sellers for Carlyle. Ernie writes over a dozen. Then Carlyle cuts the pay in half.

“I’m tired of writing them, anyway,” Ernie says. “They’ve served their purpose: I’ve learned how to construct a novel. Now I’m ready to write the Big One. But I need time to write it, and money. If we sell this house, we’ll have the money. That’ll give me the peace of mind to write.”

Sell this house? Sell the stucco cottage? I look around our pale yellow living room. Its fireplace. Its bookshelves. Cor’s oil. Outside, the two beeches. The shady stone path interspersed with violets.

“Sell the stucco cottage, Ernie? Do we have to?”

“Nothing lasts forever, Ernestina. And now’s a good time. It’s spring.”

The For Sale sign goes up. I clear out closets. Ernie sorts through papers. A husband and wife with three teen-aged sons check out the house. They make an offer.

“Close enough,” Ernie says.

We buy a brick six-plex in the inner city that started life in 1897 as a single-family home. It seems like a Frankenstein monster to me, with kitchens and bathrooms where they were never meant to be. Ernie’s mother will live in a first-floor studio, carved from the original dining room. We’ll live in the second-floor one-bedroom and rent out the other four apartments; that’ll be our income.

We call a mover. Set a date. The pitching-out continues.

One June night, Merlin comes back to the stucco cottage missing half his tail. He doesn’t seem to miss it, but Ernie does. He bends down to stroke Merlin’s throat. I haven’t seen Ernie touch or talk to Merlin for a long time. No one’s touched or talked to Merlin.

“What happened to your lovely fringed tail, Merlin?” he asks. “Did you run into a lawn mower?”

Merlin looks at Ernie with his large liquid amber eyes. He murmurs.

“He still has his long velvety ears, Ernie.”

One night a few weeks later, Merlin himself doesn’t come home. Ernie and Joshua — who’s four years old now — and I roam the neighborhood calling his name. Our neighbor across the street, an architect, hears us. He climbs his asphalt driveway and approaches us. “You looking for your dog?” Behind him, fenced-in, a German shepherd runs back and forth, barking at us.

“That’s right,” Ernie says. “Have you seen him?”

“Not lately, but he used to come over here almost every morning and taunt my Hans. Raced back and forth in front of the rail fence, taunting poor Hansie. One morning, Hans caught your dog’s tail and bit it off. Served your dog right.”

Merlin never comes home. And on the Fourth of July, we leave the stucco cottage, too.