Truth & Reconciliation

A story about a woman who buys a plastic fern.

My husband died last year. He was an oak of a man. His friends would say he looked like an oil drum. In an emergency, you imagined you could roll him up into a ball and throw him at whatever the problem was – he would knock it down. On the other hand, I’ve always had a rather frail appearance… we looked like a cartoon together. I could slip behind him and be completely hidden from view. I could stand with my face pressed into his knotted back…

I’ve started doing Yoga for Active Seniors. I saw the tapes advertised in the back of a magazine. After my husband died I felt like my body was slowly disappearing. I would catch my reflection in mirrors and sometimes it would look like I was half-transparent. Beams of white light would shine straight through me. I thought that it might help if I tried to get in shape, so I called the number and placed an order. The tapes took three weeks to arrive, in a discreet cardboard box… my building’s security guard, Miguel, was kind enough to carry them up to the flat, and now I stand in front of the TV every morning in my exercise clothes (horrid neon colors, not my style at all – but I never wear them out) and follow the instructor’s directions. The instructor isn’t a young woman, but she’s not as old as I am… at least, I don’t see how she could be.

I don’t think the yoga is making much of a difference, but it’s become part of my routine. I’m glad for this. Having a routine gives me something to do. I’ve read that it’s important to stay busy in your later years, to not become complacent, and slip away into the twilight. Sometimes, though, I wake up hungover… I’ve always enjoyed a few glasses of wine with my dinner, but it makes my movements sluggish. I find myself falling behind the instructor, my body still moving in a downward arc when I’m supposed to be reaching for the stars. I keep going, though. I push through. Eventually the credits roll, and the tape shuts off. I have to remember to rewind it myself. There’s no one else minding that sort of thing anymore…

My husband worked for a chemical supply company. He coordinated shipments of precursor compounds in bulk quantities – mostly to commercial pharmaceutical manufacturers, but sometimes to research labs at very prestigious universities. It was very complicated work. There were an enormous amount of regulations involved. I was never able to understand too much of it, not that my husband ever really tried to make me. It wasn’t important to him like that. He didn’t see any reason to involve me. “It’s work, and work is work,” he would say. “I’m just another man keeping the wheels turning.” He made good money, and that was what mattered, for both of us. We were able to buy this flat after his second promotion, and that’s where we stayed. Now it’s just me, of course… the rooms feel much larger without him, except for the bedroom… I sleep with the curtains open, you know, to let some light in. It means I almost always wake up early, now, with the sunrise, or not much after. Even when my head is aching, I can’t seem to help it.

We never had any children… this wasn’t a good city for raising them, back when we might have. People disappeared all the time. There were packs of hungry street dogs roaming around, and sometimes you would read in the newspaper about a little boy or girl getting attacked and eaten, right there in the middle of the street. It made me so sad… sometimes, after I read one of those news stories, I wouldn’t be able to go outside. I would sit in our flat and measure the circumference of my ankles, put my hand around them, imagine how easily they could be snapped, broken up and mangled by a dog’s jaws or a man’s hands or some sort of dangerous, indifferent machine. I felt like I was made of twigs and cobwebs, that almost anything could easily disassemble me into all my tiny little parts. Would the police have even known what they were looking at, when they found what was left of me? Would they be able to believe what they were looking at was ever really alive and human, like them? My husband would come home from work and find all the lights off, and nothing on the table to eat… later, after the new government took over, and the Truth & Reconciliation committee released its report, the city became much safer. Shops took the bars off their windows. They conducted renovations on their storefronts. New developments were approved, and the people in our neighborhood started to look more chic. My husband and I talked about adopting, but we were both older by then. I think we both thought it was already too late – eventually, I guess it was.

Last month, my friend Eliza came over. I have a few friends, still, but I guess she’s the only one I’m really close to. We used to be coworkers, back before I met my husband, and after I left my job we kept in touch. She got married, too, and the four of us would go out on dinner dates sometimes. Her husband is still alive, but I haven’t seen him since the funeral. I don’t think he knows what to say to me, which is okay; we were never that close, I don’t expect anything… anyway, it was Eliza that told me I should get a plant. She looked around and said, “You know, you should get a houseplant. It would really brighten the room up.”
“I don’t think I want to bring any new life into this place,” I said. “Maybe that sounds silly to you, but I just don’t.”
“Okay, so get an artificial one. They make some very elegant plastic ferns now, you know.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You wouldn’t even have to water it. And it would brighten up the room so much. You could put it right there.” She pointed to a spot near the TV that was empty except for a long, narrow mirror hanging on the wall. It was a mirror I would catch my reflection in, sometimes, when I did my exercises there. Sometimes, I had to admit, I had the thought it would be better if there was something in the way.