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a different life 289 Lingering Mary Pacifico Curtis We’re in the family room. It’s a redwood, river rock mountain cabin feeling without a fire in the fireplace—the room where Doug and I spread ourselves on the big soft couch, draping limb over limb dropping into cushions, drifting into utter contentment together. That is not what happens now. In this moment I decide that I need something from our bedroom and walk to the other end of our house. Opening the hall door, I hear a sound that I heard earlier in the day. I search the two bedrooms on either side of the hallway, inspect the closets and turn to our bedroom. I hear the sound again and turn back, this time noting a sheet draped over the glass shower door in the hallway bathroom. “Who’s there?” The sheet moves in the way of someone trying to be still, not breathe. I pull the bathroom door shut and hold it tight. I try to scream, but I hear only a gurgle before my throat closes. I try again, this time calling, “Doug…” My hoarse yell takes me from sleep to wakefulness, the sound building as I become alert. Time is moving backwards. In the beginning it is today. I am a widow. It has been two years. I think, “I have so much more life to live.” And then, to myself I know, “He’s here with me.” Early on, probably in the first year after his death, I dream of a kiss. I’m kissing a man who does not look a bit like Doug. In my heart it is Doug. I call him Doug and he answers to that name, yet, to look at him, he is not Doug. I start to go out with a widower whose wife died a year ago. We talk easily— he’s a critic, I’m in PR. There’s more than that, it’s easy to talk. There’s more than that, we touch. People who lose a beloved don’t have the gift of 290 the widows’ handbook intimacy. Every touch is a reminder. This man touches me and I hold his arm fondly as we cross the plaza to the theater. I know he’s not the one. ...

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