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August 31, 1978
I hardly know how to write this down.
But I suppose it must be recorded, just as I’ve recorded everything else.
I had plans to meet Oliver at the seaside cottage last week. I had the girls with me. Carmella was asleep, and Elsa and I played little games on the porch, waiting. Oliver was late, which was strange. I decided to wait for him for a half-hour before I called his office. His secretary said he was off today.
After two hours of waiting, I had to get the girls back home. I was outraged, but more than that, I was frightened. I began to think that Oliver was about to leave me. That he’d met someone else or that he was too tired of waiting around for me.
I returned home to make dinner for Neal. I was in a terrible mood, making a lot of noise in the kitchen. As the beans boiled in the pot, a neighbor down the road called, and I answered it angrily.
“Have you heard the news?” our neighbor, Mrs. Talmon, asked me.
“What news?” I practically bit her head off.
“That therapist of yours,” Mrs. Talmon went on. “He was in a boating accident last night.”
I nearly toppled to the floor after that. I hardly remember what she told me and had to piece it together later when more people called me to gossip about it. The gist is that Oliver went on a sailing trip last night with two of his buddies. A terrible wind came and capsized the boat, and Oliver, my darling, handsome, and powerful Oliver, drowned in the Nantucket Sound.
It’s past midnight now, and I’m wide awake, trying not to cry too loudly. Around me, this big house Neal calls “the Remington House” feels like a prison. I thought I was on my way to a brand-new life with a love that I could actually count on.
But instead, Oliver has left me, just as I thought he would. He’s left me here, on this earth and in this life, all by myself.
Oh, Oliver. Why. Why. Why.
September 3, 1978
Attending Oliver’s funeral was difficult, but I was bent on going. Eventually, I found a babysitter to take over during the afternoon, then dressed in all black and drove myself to the church. Nobody at the service knew me as Oliver’s girlfriend, as the woman he’d pledged his life to. Probably, everyone thought I was just there to rubberneck and gossip.
Unfortunately, midway through the service, I broke down, sobbing. I got a few strange looks, and I probably started a bit of gossip of my own.
Because of the nature of his death, they never found his body, which has made things incredibly hard to accept. I still have this sense that he’ll appear outside the door one day, smiling at me like he did that first time in his office, as though he knew everything about me.
September 5, 1978
I have returned to the mundanity of my old life. I scarcely know how to get out of bed some days. Besides Carmella and Elsa, I have nothing to live for.
I miss Oliver so incredibly. I might just fall apart.
September 7, 1978
I received a call this afternoon that rocked me to the core. It was Oliver’s lawyer, a man named Fred, and he wanted me to come to his office to go over something Oliver had written in his will.
I couldn’t get a babysitter, so I packed up Carmella and Elsa and took them downtown, where we waited in the lawyer’s lobby to be called in. When I entered, the lawyer laughed at Carmella and Elsa and then smiled nervously at me. It occurred to me that he is the only man on earth who knows the nature of my relationship with Oliver.
But then, he told me what Oliver had left me.
The seaside cottage.
Our home together.
It’s now all mine.
I had to sign a few pieces of paper, which assured me that the seaside cottage was mine and mine alone, not my husband’s. Afterward, the lawyer gave me the keys, and I headed out, shaking wildly as I drove all the way to the cottage. Once there, Elsa ran wild through the house and Carmella cooed happily on the floor. But I walked through the halls as though I was a ghost haunting the place.
The house itself looked just as it had on that day when I’d sat there, waiting for him to come home. The same stuff was in the fridge, rotting now. The same bread was on the counter.
And in fact, it’s late, later than Neal’s set dinner time, and the girls and I are still here. I don’t know that I want to go back home— but I know I will. I’m not strong enough to be a single woman alone in this world, especially with two children. I wanted to build a life with Oliver, perhaps in this little house. Now that Oliver is gone, I am left to double down on my old life, with hopes that it will eventually be okay again.
