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

Book One, Part Two, Chapter 42: A Forty-Year Drunk

I’ve just realized something: I’m coming off a forty-year drunk.

Not drunk on alcohol or drugs. Drunk on Ernie. Drunk on the relationship.

Ernie was my task-master, and now tasks don’t get done. I don’t clean the bathroom. I don’t sweep the kitchen floor. I don’t do laundry. To even begin these tasks makes me angry, and I don’t want to feel anger.

I only do what doesn’t make me angry. Read. Write. Walk to the park, to the library, to the bank and grocery, to the cafe. Eat chocolate. Drink cups of tea and cocoa. This is all.

The lines on my face have deepened. The lids of my eyes have dropped. My shoulders droop. I don’t think Ernie would recognize me. I’m not his Merry Mite or Lemon-Topped Zephyr anymore.

The phone rings, and I don’t know whether to answer it. The cafe has miso chicken salad, and I don’t know if I want it. John and Rhonda invite me to the track, and I don’t know whether to go. Every decision, even the simplest — when to get up in the morning — baffles me.

Ernie used to awaken, turn on the bedside lamp, look at his watch, and say: “Time to be stirring, Ernestina.”

Did I know how much I depended on him? Of course not. He was the air I breathed.