ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife
Book One, Part Two, Chapter 14: A Yard Sale
Sunday afternoon.
When I can’t bear to be with myself or by myself any longer, I wrap Ernie’s paisley scarf about my neck, put on his hound’s-tooth jacket — I find a dried cherry blossom in its breast pocket — pick up my keys, and head out the door.
On a nearby street, I come upon a sign advertising a yard sale. It’s almost four o’clock — closing time — but I climb the front steps of the tall brick house anyway. Ernie and I went to a lot of yard sales.
This house, with its ancient wallpaper, smells musty. The living room is mostly empty except for a piano in the far corner, its dark wood ringed and dried-out. Maybe a widow lived here. Raised her family here. Buried her husband, and now she’s either dead or gone.
I head into the kitchen, then out the back door to a table in the yard laden with kitchenware. Picking up the smaller of two copper-bottomed skillets, I turn to the white-haired woman tending the table. “How much?” I ask.
“The sale’s over,” she says. “Everything’s half-price now.”
Does Joshua need a copper-bottomed skillet? He called the other day to get my recipe for tomato soup. Maybe he’ll saute onions and garlic in this one. I decide to buy both skillets — they’re hard to resist at a buck-fifty each, and they’ll last forever, right — and give the white-haired woman my three dollars. Usually I don’t carry money with me when I’m on a walk. Today I did. Just enough.
“There may be lids in the garage that will fit them,” she says. “If you find one, you can have it for free.”
I find two lids, then head home with my acquisitions. I think: What would I keep, if I were to sell out?
First, the framed passport photo of Ernie and young Joshua, taken when Ernie first dreamed of traveling with us to Mexico. In the photo, Joshua looks so light and innocent, and Ernie looks so serious, gazing straight out, his chin a bit hidden by the top of Joshua’s blond head.
I remember the red-plaid wool shirt Ernie’s wearing; it came from my brother. I remember the dark-green top Joshua’s wearing. I remember Joshua’s soft round body. I wish I could hold young Joshua in my arms right now, kiss him, look into his Caribbean blue eyes and tell him how precious he is. Dab away his drool. Watch him smile. I wish I could tell Ernie how safe he always made me feel. Even when we were broke, even the one time we were broke and hungry, I never felt unsafe with him. I knew he would never leave me.
Except he has. That was my fear, wasn’t it? That he would leave me. That was the fear I could not face. Who am I without Ernie?
