CHAPTER SEVEN

He could hear his own footsteps as he walked through his big house: a house that used to be filled with people and noises and fun. It felt like a home when Jenay was alive. Now it felt like a mausoleum.

Just to have a sound other than his own breathing in the house, he went to the wall and pressed Jenay’s playlist button. Her songs used to always soothe him, and they still did as he walked through his living room and then went into his kitchen. Everybody from Marvin Gaye to Rod Stewart came over the stereo, as Jenay had a very eclectic taste in music. Not necessarily his taste, he was never a big music man, but now her taste was his taste. Her music was his music. Which he knew wasn’t healthy, but it was his life now.

He poured himself a glass of wine and walked over to the huge back window that overlooked a sweeping view of his garden: Jenay’s sanctum. She loved it back there. Always planting and seeding and doing whatever gardeners did: it was her place of peace. Now it was just a barren land to Charles. Just another place in all the places all around his house that needed tending to.

And the music wasn’t soothing him the way it usually did. Mainly because the song playing, Bonnie Tyler singing Total Eclipse of the Heart as penned by Jim Steinman, hit too close to home. It felt more devastating than soothing to Charles:

“Turn around.

Every now and then I get a little bit lonely

and you’re never coming ‘round.

Turn around.

Every now and then I get a little bit tired

of listening to the sound of my tears.

Turn around.

Every now and then I get a little bit nervous

that the best of all the years have gone by…

Turn around, bright eyes.

Every now and then I fall apart.

And I need you now tonight.

And I need you more than ever.

And if you only hold me tight.

We’ll be holding on forever.

Once upon a time I was falling in love,

but now I’m only falling apart.

There’s nothing I can do.

A total eclipse of the heart.

Once upon a time there was love in my life,

but now there’s only love in the dark.

Nothing I can say.

A total eclipse of the heart.”

This loss was almost unbearable to Charles as he continued to stare out into nothingness with eyes as wide as his shock. As he continued to try with all within him to see Jenay in that nothingness. To see his wife’s beautiful face again. The love of his life again. But all he saw was nothing.

She was gone. She was dead. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Nothing.

And just when he needed it least, his doorbell rang. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against his glass. Probably one of his children coming by to check on him again, something he told them he absolutely despised. He was not a child. They needed to check on themselves and leave him the hell alone. That was why he changed all his locks and wouldn’t give them keys: to stop them from bothering him so much. Their hovering made it worse, not better. They had to understand his situation: He had to get used to the solitude. He had to get used to being without Jenay.

He pushed himself away from the window and went and glanced at his security monitor. When he saw who was at his front door, he shook his head. He would have preferred his children bugging him!

He went to the door and opened it. It was one of the ladies from his country club. She was all smiles with a bowl of macaroni salad or whatever she cooked up to come over. “Hello there, Charles.”

“Hey Megs.”

“How are you?”

Charles didn’t even bother to answer that question.

But she kept on with her high-energy self. “I was so worried about you. I said poor Charlie. Thought I’d come over and cheer you up.”

She was a gorgeous lady in her thirties. Could have any man in town she wanted, but she kept coming by to “check on” ol’ pitiful Charles. Who, she also had to know, wasn’t just any man in town, but the richest man in town.

“Why don’t you come to the country club with me tonight?” she suggested. “The gang would simply love to see you again.”

“No thank you.”

“But they would love to see you again.”

“But I wouldn’t love to see them. You understand? No thank you.”

But that tough response still didn’t stop Megs. He had a bad disposition even when Jenay was alive, she felt, but it had gone on steroids since her death. But she pressed on. “Or maybe, if you prefer, I could fix you dinner right here at your house. I have a casserole I baked for you.” She lifted the dish to hand to him.

“Now look,” Charles said harshly, “I told you I’m not interested. How many ways can I show you? Because that’s what’s coming next.”

That finally took the fake smile off of her face. “You don’t have to be rude.”

“It’s late. You’re at my house for the third time this week, disturbing me, and I’m the one who’s rude? Kiss my rude ass,” he said, and slammed his door. He’d told that woman more times than he could count that he was not interested in her or anybody else right now. But that didn’t stop her. Maybe a door slam would.

But less than ten minutes later, there was another doorbell ring. He went to his security monitor again. This time it wasn’t Megs, but one of the widows in his neighborhood. Another good looking lady who’d been bothering him for months too.

But this time he poured his remaining wine out of the glass, sat the glass in the kitchen sink, and as the doorbell continued to ring, he took himself to bed.

But even in bed, he couldn’t sleep. On his back, under the covers, he stared into nothingness again. His face so anguished he looked unwell.

“How am I going to make it without her, Lord? How am I going to make it?”

How ?

It would be hours, nearly five, before he finally fell asleep.