Every night, four beers, three or four gins, brandy at bedtime, topped off with a Xanax. You can’t get used to life without your wife. I understand that. She was your trusted friend and companion for thirty-four years. You could rely on her to stand by you no matter how messed up you were. Even when you were apart for periods of time you could always talk to her on the phone. And now you can’t even do that, you long to hear her voice, you sit in her armchair in the living room (now the deadroom), her ashes in a burgundy metal urn in a glassed-in section of the bookcase, and you talk to her photo on the mantel. You feel you can’t live another day in this house you both shared — you can no longer afford it for one thing. You’ve been looking for a cheap apartment but it’s so hard to find one that’s not a dump, besides which you can barely muster the energy or the will to get out of bed in the morning, let alone look for an apartment. You spent months looking for this house for your ailing wife and yourself, all the while staying in expensive weekly-rate motels, so you felt very lucky to find it, and you believed the two of you would live here until you died — which as sick as your wife was, you still thought you would die first, being six years older. The fact that you’ve got tens of thousands in unpaid medical bills (ambulances, hospitals, nursing homes, meds…) is a major complication. You say your hope now is on sale for $275 at the local Guns & Ammo. I trust that was your idea of dark humor. I will call you when I get back next week. Don’t do anything crazy now!

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