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The Day Edith Wamsley Died

Tom Deiker

    Edith Wamsley was late for work the day that Edith Wamsley died. Not that she needed to go to work, or needed to be on time if she did. Digital Videos International paid her by the project –- developing and tracking production schedules, as she described it to Harold — and allowed, even encouraged her to work at home rather than take up expensive space at their headquarters in downtown Detroit. But Edith told Harold she welcomed the structure of getting out of the house, being on a fixed work schedule, “the competitive pressure of a work environment.” Plus, she told Harold, leaving the house removed her two major temptations: food and daytime television.
    But still, to die over such pedestrian choices!
    Not that working downtown was the only choice that led to Edith’s death. If only she had not changed the skirt which didn’t go with that sweater and was wrinkled besides and besides made her look too hippy; if only Harold hadn’t put the car in the garage for the first time this year because a hard freeze was forecast; if only Darrell hadn’t fought longer than usual to stay in bed worrying a seven-year-old’s worry about a teacher who called on him yesterday and might again today; if only the trucker had not left the cafe a little later than usual because someone left the sports section on the table with the headline about the amazing sixth game of the World Series; if only . . .
    Harold knew Edith’s death wasn’t Edith’s fault or his or Darrell’s or the truck driver’s. Might as well blame it on the laws of physics and the unique equation of the left front fender of Edith’s Mazda which when struck by a Peterbilt’s right front bumper coming around the curve at that angle and speed with an empty trailer — instead of glancing off the car moving onto the narrow road, the rig spun the car and Edith under the trailer body as it slid ever-so-slightly on the damp asphalt, then grabbed and held the roadway’s graveled shoulder. Every element and others equally important but unknown brought about the conclusion: Edith and car crushed by the trailer’s four right-rear wheels. Simple as that –- or as complicated.
    Edith was dead at age 32, and no one was to blame. The truck driver had the police report’s assurance that Edith was legally responsible for her own death. Little Darrell lacked any introspection or history of guilt to blame himself for his mother’s death. And Edith was past worrying about causes and effects. So Harold — though his first thought, even before the numbing grief, was about putting the car in the garage the night before — knew he must absolve himself as well as the others. But the feeling of guilt lingered, of course.
    Harold’s second thought was how to tell his young son that his mother was dead. He had plenty of time to work on it as he went to the morgue to identify Edith. He was still working on it while he looked on the serene and beautiful face of his wife. Nine years of marriage failed to convince Edith that it was her face that drew him to her at the Newman Center social. Her figure, of course, was as perfect as her face, he always added, wondering how she could be critical of either. Edith remained unconvinced that any man would give more weight to the face, and, yes, she was critical of both. The narrow nose he loved — too narrow, she said. The pooch in her stomach he loved — too poochy, she said.
    Thankfully, the morgue sheet revealed only a serene face at peace. Harold knew instinctively, without putting it in thought or image, that beneath the sheet on Edith’s no longer perfect body was sufficient proof of the cause of death.
    Harold walked into Garfield Elementary School still without a plan on what to tell his son. He never got past trying to tell the officious lady why he had to see his son. The principal, for that was who the lady was, turned officiously caring as Harold broke down in tears, the sudden emotion striking without warning as he began to explain. When they brought Darrell, the principal hugged the son as Harold blubbered through his news. Darrell cried in chorus with his father, asking over and over again, “Really, Daddy, really, did Mommy really die, did she really die?”
    The principal thought of all the practical steps, found that Harold’s mother lived in Storm Lake, called and gave her the news, asked her to meet Harold and Darrell at home. Harold was relieved he could settle into a paralysis where no action was required. He knew his mother would take over all the details. He became so instantly helpless that he even allowed the principal to drive father and son home. The two sat together in the front seat in a silence the principal respected, Darrell continuing to follow a father’s example on how to act when a mother dies.
    The wrecker company that now guardianed Edith’s Mazda called the afternoon before the funeral, suggested Harold could pick up the car’s personal effects “any time at all, whenever convenient, no hurry now.” This was a relief to Harold, this excuse to get away from the well-intentioned tedium of phone calls, visits, offers to “help in any way I can.” When he said his name to the auto-body repairman worrying over a dented fender, the man turned all embarrassed. Perfectly natural, Harold thought: everyone knows, but doesn’t know what to say or how to act. The man pointed with his rubber hammer to a tiny office in the corner of the garage. The manager was even more embarrassed. Because the desk was small, the duffle bag and a shopping bag of glove compartment items sat on the floor. The manager waved to them.
    “Thought we’d get what was in the car back to you.” The manager realized Harold didn’t recognize the items, so he picked them up, held them out. “This’s the stuff in the glove compartment, and this here was in the trunk.”
    Harold nodded his gratitude, took the items. “‘Preciate all you’ve done. Anything else I need to do . . . sign?”
    “No, no, nothing, everything’s taken care of here on this end.”
    Harold nodded again. The manager nodded too, still awkward and embarrassed. “And don’t worry none about the car, it’s headed for the scrap heap, so won’t nobody ever be driving it again.”
    Harold nodded a final time. “Thanks. Thanks for telling me. That’s, uh, good to know.”
    Harold got in his car, set the plastic bag on the passenger-side floor, the duffle bag on the seat. It was a fine leather bag and opened immediately when he pressed the latch. He looked up to see the repairman and manager both looking his way, the repairman leaning on the fender, the manager standing in his office doorway. Harold drove home.
    When Harold dumped the duffle bag contents on the bed he recognized each item, because all his hours cruising internet sites had educated him on their use: the pinkish-purple string of beads, the transparent glass rod with its series of swellings, the plastic cone even now standing upright on the bed, the strap-on dildo, the glow-in-the-dark vibrator with the clitoral stimulator.
    It would be a long time before Harold sorted out all the issues raised by the duffle bag and its contents. But his first dilemma would prove to be the hardest to resolve on this day before Edith’s funeral, and on all future days. When he, Harold Wamsley, went from web site to web site, from porn star to porn star, from category to category, from 20-second video to 20-second video — exactly how many, he wondered, of these women beautiful in face and body were married? Did their husbands know what they did? How would they feel about other men watching them in this way? Because he seldom noticed faces was it possible he himself had watched his own wife? How did he feel, now, about all this, after this, after all that went before this?
    One answer he did know with certainty even this first day of reflection: how could he dare to blame Edith for any of it when he himself had been for so long a, a – what, exactly? – customer?



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