Picking his way between the frozen-food freezers, selecting the entrees he would need for the week, Dyce was struck with a sudden sense of self-disgust. He had promised himself he would stop this whole business, and here he was at it again. He didn’t feel that it was wrong. He never had conflicts of right and wrong, didn’t think in those terms, but he did think it was self-indulgent and worse, stupid. Dyce prided himself on being an intelligent man, more intelligent, in fact, than any of the half-wits at work including his boss and that snake charmer, Chaney. Dyce had based his life on an intelligent approach to things. It was important, after all, to give the appearance of conformity and rationality.
Not that I don’t have emotions, he thought. He had been accused of being emotionless more than once, and the charge rankled because, of course, he had more emotions than most people. I feel things more deeply than others, he thought. I have a greater range of emotions and they move me to a greater degree. I feel things with the same sensitivity as the great musicians. He felt a particular affinity to Schubert and could not listen to anything by that neurasthenic master without being stirred to the soul.
The problem, the reason for the charge, was that Dyce controlled his emotions; he did not spill them all over the sidewalk for the world to see like some people he knew. There was a proper place for their expression, but that place was internal. But now with this business, he was not controlling them well enough, and he was ashamed of himself. The men had become more frequent. After each one he vowed he would quit. It wasn’t sensible, it would only lead to trouble. But then, after six months, then four months, then two, he would do it again.
He selected frozen lasagna, a favorite of his, and, to balance the cholesterol indulgence, a package of frozen spinach. Dyce made it a point to eat spinach regularly: because it was good for him, and because he didn’t like it. He made a casserole of canned beans and spinach and garlic that he could practically feel scouring out his veins and arteries of any offending plaque.
He had to stop; it was going to be dangerous, there were too many and eventually he would make a mistake. Not from stupidity but from impatience. And from the odds. Dyce understood odds. He knew them backwards and forwards. He could calculate the chances of dying in a hurricane in a wood frame house as opposed to a brick house. He could figure the chances of having a heart attack while jogging-they were high-as opposed to dying within six months of having stopped-they were low. He could deduce the likelihood of dying of an aneurysm while conducting a symphony orchestra or buying it during sex. Dyce knew a great deal about dying, certainly more than anyone he knew.
He also knew that the statistical probability of dying in his living room if you were a young man within a four-town area was becoming dangerously high. Dangerous for Dyce, that is. He had already pushed things too far for the sake of convenience. If he continued this business, he was going to have to start seeking men farther afield. And for the fifth time in the past year, he promised himself he would now stop. Clean up the mess at home, and then call it quits.
He became so agitated while contemplating his shortcomings that he barely spoke to the blonde girl at the checkout. When he reached his car he realized that he had been thinking so much about himself that he had forgotten to buy bread. He returned to the store and selected a loaf of country oat after tantalizing himself with a box of glazed doughnuts that rested within arm’s reach of the bread. Sugar was a problem for Dyce. He tried to avoid it because he overindulged once he got started.
It was unlike him to be rude, so he made a point of getting on the blonde girl’s line again, but as he arrived, she was transferring her cash tray and handing the register over to an acned boy. Dyce watched her go. She did not look his way and seemed preoccupied with her own sorrows. Her eyes looked as if she had been crying again. Dyce wanted to tell her he was sorry for not having spoken to her earlier. It was not the kind of gesture he would make, although he often had the impulse.
When he reached his car, the girl was fumbling with her keys, trying to get into the car next to his. She dropped the keys and left them there, leaning her head on her arm atop the car, as if dropping them was the final straw.
Dyce picked them up but when he said, “Here, Miss…” she did not take them.
He read the name stitched into her uniform. Helen. What an old-fashioned name, he thought with approval. Dyce had no patience with the fashionable Michelles and Heathers, or the handrolled Lareenas and Berthines. She seemed a decent, old-fashioned friendly girl, and he was glad she had a name to match.
“You dropped your keys, Helen.”
She turned at the sound of her name and stared at him for a moment. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Dyce noted that there was no mascara. He didn’t like mascara on the living.
“Oh, Mr. Dyce,” she cried and suddenly lowered her head to his shoulder.
She told him through her sobs that she hadn’t realized it was him. Dyce patted her back gently and looked around the parking lot to see if he was being observed. He rather wished that someone was watching. Clearly here was a girl, a woman really, who didn’t think he couldn’t understand emotion. Here was somebody who didn’t regard Dyce as a robot or number-chasing nerd. He hoped someone would be a witness.
She pulled away, wiping at her face with her hand, then the back of her arm. “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing loudly.
“No,” he said. “No, no.”
“I just… I have no right, I just…”
“No, no. No.”
“You always seem so kind,” she said. She sniffed again, then laughed at herself “Listen to me snorting away.”
“No, I’m glad… Can I help?”
She tried to smile but her tears welled up again and the smile bent downward.
“I’ve had a death,” she said. She shook her head, paused, shook it again and tried once more to unlock her car.
Dyce steadied her hand with his own, surprised at his boldness.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen…”
“I can’t… You’re so kind…”
“Listen. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
Helen dropped the keys into her purse. Dyce found his arm across her shoulders as they walked across the parking lot to a coffee shop.
They slid into a booth that had just been vacated by a police officer. Helen nodded as if she knew the man.
“My mother,” Helen said. She started crying again, but softly now that they were in public. When she was finished, she blew her nose in a paper napkin.
“I know,” said Dyce sympathetically.
“I can’t seem to get used to it. It wasn’t a surprise. I mean, I knew she was going to die, she’d been sick for so long, but somehow you’re just never ready.”
“I know. I know.”
“It’s been a week, but I just can’t get used to the idea that she’s not here anymore. I dream about her, I see her. I mean, people-women-will come into the store and just for a second I’m positive it’s her. And then I’ll go along for a while and be fine, I’ll actually think I’m fine. Then all of a sudden, for no special reason, I’ll just burst into tears, just like now.”
“I know,” said Dyce. “I know.”
“Mr. Dyce… I was lucky it was you there in the parking lot. I mean, when I get like this, I don’t know if I’m coming or going. If a stranger had picked up my keys-well, I mean, we don’t know each other very well, but somehow I feel I know you, you know? You’re always so friendly, you take time to say a word, you always seem to have a comment about something, the weather or something, you know? Some people will not give you the time of day in those circumstances. They just want me to bag them up and take their money and run and…”
“Did you see her?”
“Pardon me?”
“Did you see your mother after-at the funeral. Was it open casket?”
“Oh. Yes, I saw her. Of course. I think an open casket is important, don’t you? People want to say good-bye.”
“Wasn’t she beautiful?”
“Why yes, yes, she was. She looked so natural, and so peaceful.”
“I know.”
“She wore this lovely soft white silk blouse with a lacey collar she liked so much. She looked so…”
“I know. Beautiful.”
“Mr. Dyce, you are so sympathetic.”
“I lost my father,” he said. Helen touched his hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Dyce wished there was a witness to this. A young woman was holding his hand in public. “I was just a child.”
“Oh, you poor man.”
“He was very young, about the age I am now.”
“It must have been awful for you. It’s bad enough to lose a parent, but for a little boy…”
“We had the casket in the living room.”
“In your house?”
“In my grandfather’s house.”
“I didn’t know that was… can you do that?”
“We kept him for three days. My grandfather thought he would rise.”
“Rise. Rise?”
“I was very small and couldn’t see up into the casket, so my grandfather would lift me and hold me over my father. So I could see.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So I could see how beautiful he was.”
“That must have been… you must have loved him very much.”
“He was my grandfather.”
“I meant-well, of course you loved them both. How did he die so young?”
Dyce removed his hand from Helen’s grasp. He folded his hands in his lap,
“You knew my name from my checks,” he said.
Helen was startled by the abrupt change in Dyce’s attitude.
“Have I said something? I didn’t mean to press you about your father…”
“There’s no other way you could know my name. You never asked me. No one else in the store knows me.”
“I suppose I must have seen it on your check. I don’t remember. I’ve known it for a long time; I was interested, you were always so nice-I hope I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“It’s all right. I was just curious how you knew. Of course it’s on my checks.”
“Mr. Dyce, you’ve been so kind, I wouldn’t do anything to upset you for the world. It’s not often you meet someone who’s kind. Most people only have time for themselves. You wouldn’t know that because you’re not that way, but most people couldn’t care less about somebody else’s troubles. And I have certainly had my share of troubles. Even the girls I work with, they’re not bad people, but I can see them rolling their eyes whenever I feel sad now. It’s only been a week, but I can see them thinking, why doesn’t she get over it already? Well, I’m sorry, it’s just not that fast.”
“You never get over a death,” said Dyce, loosening again. “If they expect you to get over it, then that person didn’t mean anything to you. And if that person didn’t mean anything to you, there’s no reason to mourn in the first place, is there?”
Helen noted his renewed animation with relief. For a moment she feared that she had lost him, that she had said too much, or the wrong thing, or the wrong way. She realized that her desperation drove them off-calm and an emotional distance would work better. Men were lured to the elusive ones. They seemed to want what didn’t want them, but if she possessed either calm or emotional control, she wouldn’t be alone and lonely to begin with. It wasn’t her looks that caused the problems. There were women at the store so ugly they shouldn’t be let out of the basement who had husbands, boyfriends, lovers. Melva, who had warts and an odd upper lip, had gone through at least three men in the past six months that Helen knew of Helen wasn’t beautiful, but she looked all right. Given time and the right accessories, she thought she made quite a nice appearance. It wasn’t her looks; it was her horrible need that repulsed them. Even now she knew it was not her red eyes or runny nose that had driven him into that frightening moment of resistance; she had tripped over something, some subtlety of discretion that other women stepped around with the surety of tightrope walkers.
“You wouldn’t mourn a stranger, would you?” Dyce demanded.
Helen was not sure of the implications of the questions. She shook her head slightly, which she hoped indicated encouragement as much as an opinion.
“Why would you?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Of course not. If a stranger dies, it’s nothing more than flesh. I don’t mean to sound indifferent, Helen, but really, who could care? We all must die, some earlier than others, but that doesn’t matter. But if it’s a loved one. If you lose someone you love…”
The sound of her name thrilled her. He had not glanced at her name tag; he had simply said “Helen”as if the word were always in his mind. She wondered if he had been fantasizing about her as she had about him. There was a need in Mr. Dyce, she could sense it. Perhaps a need to match her own.
“You are very sensitive,” she said. It was hard to hold his eyes. They kept moving around the room, but they would light on her sometimes, and when they did, Helen gave him her most sympathetic smile.
“I respond to that,” she said. “I mean, that is something we have in common. I’m sensitive, too. Most men are afraid to be sensitive.”
Dyce sipped his coffee and when he returned the cup to the saucer she had moved her hand so that it was impossible to avoid touching it again. Tentatively, startling himself, he brushed it with his fingers. Her hand turned over immediately and clutched his with a palm that was warm and moist.
“Can I tell you something? I think you’ll understand. My mother has really been gone a month. I told you a week because I thought it would sound silly for me to be acting this way after a month, but now I think you would understand.”
“Yes,” said Dyce.
“I knew you would understand. I’m not a liar, though. I don’t tell lies. This was just-you know.”
“Yes.”
“What you said about love. I agree with that, I believe that, but can I ask you a question?”
Dyce nodded. Her hand was soft and fleshy, like her face, but her touch was no longer just sympathetic. Somehow her fingers had become entwined with his own. As the waitress passed, Dyce thought she must see them as lovers. He wondered if Helen understood the implications of holding his hand in this way. She seemed so naive and trusting.
“Do you think it’s possible to love someone too much? Because that’s how I love. Completely. I give myself completely. Is that wrong?”
“No,” said Dyce. “Love is forever.”
She squeezed his hand so hard it hurt.