A Stranger's Face

Janie opens the newspaper, hoping something in there will push out the two memories she has of the day - the man with the vacant stare and Ann welling up alone in the garden.  Within hours, both of these memories will have receded. She is not like Ann, who carries the memory of her beloved around involuntarily, the way Janie transports her organs. Janie could boast, fairly enough, that she carries her kidneys without a hitch, and most days fails to notice entirely the weight of her lungs. But she does not carry the memory of anyone or anything for too long, at least not with any specificity.  Not the way Ann does, weeping as she puts her beloved's garden to bed, hurt, as if she is an interloper to the soil, as if the flowers nip at her hands. No. The interactions of Janie's day have the impact of rough-hewn wooden balls, that bounce through her, leaving scars where they hit a lining too hard or collide, sometimes leaving untraceable, nagging slivers.
    This is how it will be with the man who stopped by this morning.  Janie had seen him before, but hadn’t met the short, forceful woman at his side. He was a talker with a golden retriever when she met him first. He had stopped by the porch to interrogate her about her own dying dog, who sat with her paws draped over the top step. How old was she and how long did she have, the man wanted to know. And then, “Have you been to New York City?” Janie had answered - a rookie mistake (she was new to the City, and mistook the question for casual conversation) - or perhaps it had been wilful  procrastination of some dull chore - no matter.  The answer launched him into 45 minutes of oddly animated insistent and disjointed conversation from which she’d had to extricate herself, awkwardly, to go get the children. She had done it badly. But that had been two years ago - at least. And now here he was, back, with the stout friendly woman, and he was stopped in front of the porch, glaring at her. She looked up and then away, and then back. The stout woman tried to usher him along, but he would have nothing of it. His stare was unkind, harsh. Janie looked at his companion. “My husband,” the woman said, and shifted her left hand to her ear, “he’s not…” Janie nodded. “He doesn’t speak,” the woman continued. “He doesn’t show emotion.”
    “Does he want to see the puppy?” Janie asked. She looked at her new dog. He sat on the top step stoically, completely uninterested in greeting either visitor. Janie pulled at his collar and he pulled back, as if she was trying to force him into a washing machine. She pulled harder and the dog moved cautiously to the woman, but steered clear of the man, who did not lower his eyes to the dog, anyway, who continued to stare at Janie.
    “Was it sudden?” she asked.
    “Dementia”  the woman said. “Three years ago, you wouldn’t have even known my husband was sick.
     "Oh," Janie said.
    "I want to get a dog, but I can’t leave him alone, This is the first time we’ve been out in so long…”
    And he’s showing you where he’s been, Janie thought. I don't know where Richard has been. If he lost his mind, would he show me?
    She wanted to say sorry. Sorry that he didn't smile, and sorry that she hadn’t known that he was sick that day he babbled so incessantly and seemed so direct and pressing. But she knew it didn’t matter. “Take care of yourself,” she said to the woman. Really, do.”  The woman smiled a little - maybe at the impossibility of it. Maybe at the gesture. Maybe at the naivety of the lady on her porch, with the puppy and the wicker furniture and the secret fear that she’d caused a near perfect stranger to lose his mind. That she could do that.