A Widow’s Story: A Memoir. Joyce Carol Oates

hospital, this waiting room holds not even the delusion of a happy ending. For these individuals, the death vigil has ended. We here are survivors, “beneficiaries.”

      It’s evident that there are other widows here this morning. Several appear to be accompanied by adult children. Mostly these are black or Hispanic citizens, for this is Trenton, New Jersey. In their midst my friend Jeanne—in oversized designer sunglasses, shoulder-length blond hair spilling over the collar of her stylish winter coat—is a vivid and incongruous presence, drawing eyes.

      Jeanne has explained what we are doing here, what “probate” is—of course, I know some of this, or would know except I seem to be operating in a mist of incomprehension. Very tired, yet alert and excited—sorting through the documents I’d been instructed to bring which include the photocopied pages now only just faintly smelling of cat pee—in this new compulsion of mine, which began when I’d been visiting Ray in the hospital, of ceaselessly rummaging through a handbag or a tote bag to see if somehow I’d lost something crucial like car keys, or my wallet, or a death certificate.

      In fact, I have not misplaced the death certificate. Of several copies hand-delivered to me by Elizabeth Davis of the Blackwell Memorial Home—a gesture of kindness which I will not forget—just one was defiled by Reynard, and has been disposed of.

      (Though later, I will retrieve this copy of the death certificate from the trash. For I am fearful of running out of copies—so many parties seem to want one, as if doubtful that Raymond Smith is deceased. That one of the copies exudes a sour cat-smell is unfortunate.)

      Many times in a curious breathless trance I have read this Certificate of Death issued by the State of New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. You would think from my concentrated interest that I might be expecting to learn something new, to be surprised. Like one digging at a wound to make it bleed I am drawn to reading the sparse information again and again, to no purpose since I have memorized it—

      Cause of Death

      Immediate Cause

      Cardiopulmonary Arrest

      Due to (or as a consequence of)

      Pneumonia

      A minimalist poem by William Carlos Williams!

      Now in the dour waiting room of the surrogate court as I reread the death certificate it occurs to me to wonder—is this true? Did Ray die simply of pneumonia, or were other factors involved?

      A secondary infection, I’d been told. There is no mention of a secondary infection in the document.

      I think that I remember having been asked at the medical center if I wanted Ray’s body autopsied. In whatever haze of confusion at the time quickly I’d said no.

      No! No.

      Could not bear it. The thought of Ray’s body being mutilated.

      I know!—the body is not the man. Not “Ray.”

      And yet—where else had “Ray” resided, except in that body?