State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [18]
“A memorial service. You call it a memorial service when you don’t have a body,” Karen said.
“I’m sorry,” Marina said. “Memorial service.”
Karen leaned around the open archway to the den. The boys in their sweatshirts and flannel pajama pants slumped into the endlessly long corduroy couch. The smallest, palest boy lay over Pickles like a rug. They were bound to the television screen as if by wires. “It’s amazing what they hear,” she said in a low voice. “They don’t even have to be listening but their ears just pick it up, then I put them to bed at night and one of them says, ‘When are we having the funeral for Daddy?’ ” Karen poured herself a glass of wine and when she wagged the bottle in Marina’s direction Marina nodded.
“Funeral,” the middle boy called out without looking at them. He giggled for a second and then stopped.
Marina thought of that muddy ground where Anders was buried and reached for her glass. “I’m sorry,” she said to Karen.
“Benjy, stop that,” Karen said in a sharp voice. “No, no, it’s just something I try to be aware of. Did Anders ever tell you I majored in Russian literature in college? I’ve been thinking I should find some Russian friends. Then we could talk anywhere. Or maybe it’s just that we could talk about Chekhov anywhere.” She took her wine to the other side of the kitchen and opened the louvered door to the big walk-in pantry. Marina followed her inside. Even the pantry was neat, bright boxes of cereal standing together in a line of diminishing height. Karen returned to her point, her voice lowered. “Sometimes I think they can hear the conversations people have about us down the street. If you listened to them talk you’d think they knew everything that was going on. I mean, they don’t understand it all but somewhere or other they’ve heard it and they remember. Do you ever wonder when you stopped being able to hear everything?” Karen asked.
“I hadn’t thought about it.” Marina had no idea how much her hearing had deteriorated over the course of her life.
Karen looked blank for a minute as if part of her had walked out of the room and then, just as quickly, returned. “I got a letter today.”
There was no question and still she said Anders’ name, her heart thrumming like a hummingbird’s heart.
Karen nodded and pulled one of those same blue envelopes out of the pocket of her sweater. She set it face up on the palm of her open hand and together they stared at it like a thing that could at any minute unfold a pair of wings. There was Anders’ clear parochial penmanship across the front. Karen Eckman . . . Eden Prairie. Marina liked to tell him he was the only doctor she ever knew who wrote like a Catholic school girl. “It’s the second one I’ve had this week,” Karen said. “The other one came on Tuesday but he wrote it later, the first of March. He was sicker then.”
Marina opened her mouth. There was something she was supposed to say but she couldn’t imagine what it would be. He was dead, he was sick, he was not so sick. The story rewound until the only conclusion to draw would be that Anders gets better. He leaves the jungle and returns to Manaus. He flies from Manaus and starts again from home, only this time they know enough to refuse to let him go. Marina wondered how many letters were still out there and when they would drift in, their postal route having mistakenly sent them on a detour through Bhutan. A person didn’t have to stretch very far to find a logical explanation for how this had happened, so why did Marina feel it necessary to tilt back her glass and take down all of the wine in a swallow?
“That experience, going out to your mailbox and finding a stack of catalogues and bills and a letter from your dead husband, there’s not been anything in my life so far to get me ready for that.” Karen unfolded the envelope and looked at the words but just as quickly looked away