He calls. He’s frantic. I rush next-door.
He grabs my hand, leads me. His wife. Head by the faucet, knees bent, she’s in the bathtub. No water. Her clothes are dry. He releases my hand. He hugs himself. He says he called 911. Again, he grabs my hand, splays my fingers, moaning about the plastic surgery she’d just had and the pills she’d been taking. I’m a doctor, he keeps reminding me, as he massages my hand with the palm of his other one. She’s not breathing, he says, and 911 told me to drain the water.
The paramedics come. But I’m a doctor, he keeps repeating. I told her not to have surgery. As he cries out, he keeps examining my fingernails, offended, I think, by their flaking polish. My wife, he moans. Is she? Can you? My wife! But still he grips my hand, twists the ring on my finger. No heartbeat, the paramedics say at last. So sorry. Gently, they lift the body from the tub. My wife. I’m a doctor, my neighbor keeps repeating, as they put his wife on a gurney. I pull my hand away. I don’t want to think what I am thinking. Don’t want to think about the young nurse who shows up at the house when his wife visits her parents. I lock my hands behind my back.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Terris’ recent books are Take Two: Film Studies (Omnidawn Publishing), Memos (Omnidawn Publishing); and Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk Press). She’s the author of 6 books of poetry, 16 chapbooks, 3 artist’s books, and one play. Journals include Denver Quarterly, The Southern Review, Georgia Review, and Ploughshares. A poem of hers from FIELD appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI. A poem from Memos, first published in Denver Quarterly, was in Best American Poetry 2015. Ms. Terris is editor emerita of Spillway Magazine and a poetry editor at Pedestal. Her new book Familiar Tense will be published by Marsh Hawk in the spring of 2019.