A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page B

are deliveries Ray has been asking about, and so tomorrow I must bring them to the hospital—page proofs, galleys—proofs of book jackets—there is a special pleasure in bringing Ray something he has requested—something attractive, striking—page proofs for the May issue of the Ontario Review cover feature on the artist Matthew Daub whose watercolors of small Pennsylvania towns and rural landscapes Ray so admires—something that will be cheering to Ray in his grim hospital room, something we can share—as for more than thirty years we have shared planning issues of Ontario Review and books published by Ontario Review Press—in my dreamy state staring at reproductions of Matthew Daub’s watercolors—thinking how much happier visual artists must be, than writers—writers and poets—we whose connections to the world are purely verbal, linear—through language we are beseeching others who are strangers to us not merely to read what we have written but to absorb it, be moved by it, to feel— then with a jolt I remember— Postpone trip!— this is urgent—I must postpone our upcoming trip to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas where our writer-friend Doug Unger has invited Ray and me to speak to graduate writing students—this trip, long-planned, is within two weeks—impossible so soon; maybe later in the spring, or maybe in the fall, Ray has suggested— Tell Doug I’m really sorry , this damned pneumonia has really knocked me out —I will send Doug an e-mail for I can’t force myself to telephone anyone, even friends, especially friends—abruptly then another thought intrudes—even as I am preparing to write to Doug on my computer— No : “Vespers”— at 2:40 A.M. I am moved to play a CD—Rachmaninoff’s “Vespers”—one of Ray’s favorite pieces of music—sonorous choral music of surpassing beauty which Ray and I heard together at a concert years ago—it might have been in Madison, Wisconsin—when we were newly married—when the great adventure of accumulating a record collection together had just begun—beautiful haunting wave-like “Vespers” which a few months ago I’d heard, returning home from a trip climbing out of the limousine in the driveway and smiling to hear this thrilling music from inside the house where Ray has turned the volume up high, to hear in his study, and thinking Yes. I’m home.

Chapter 11
E-mail Record
February 16, 2008.
To Richard Ford
Ray is definitely feeling better but I am not going to tempt fate by going on too long optimistically. Thanks, Richard, for your moral support. It is greatly appreciated . . . Maybe you could (come down from Maine) and drive all the Princeton afflicted around. That could be your “new phase.” Biographers would be thrilled. How much easier than writing . . .
Much love to both,
Joyce
    ( Richard Ford , hearing that Ray was hospitalized , very gallantly offered to fly down to Princeton and “drive me around”—an offer of such generosity , I was deeply moved even as common sense advised me to decline.)
February 17, 2008, 4:08 A.M.
To Emily Mann
Ray is said to be improving—and I think that this is so—but he has such a long way to go & is so weak & prone to fevers, I’m dreading the future; somehow I don’t think that he will ever be “well” again—this experience has been so ravishing. And in any case I have to see it as a presentiment of what lies ahead, unavoidably. I can’t sleep for thinking of all that there is to do, that I doubt I can do . . .
However, you did get through a worse and more protracted experience so I suppose that I will, too. Night thoughts are not productive but—how to avoid them?
I put together a little packet of snapshots to bring to Ray, to cheer him up, and came across the most beautiful photo of you and Gary, taken some years ago by Ray at one of our parties. . . . I’m sure that I’d given you a copy at the time.
Much love,
Joyce
    (Emily Mann’s husband , Gary Mailman ,