Life without Charlie–her friends asked Helen how she could ever cope. They meant to be kind, the women from her neighborhood and from her church who stopped by with homemade lasagna and fresh baked bread. They partook in the ritual of tea and sympathy that seemed to dominate these types of events, but, in the end, they always asked the same question. Life without Charlie–how would she ever survive? When the question had filled her ears, she could almost hear her grandmother’s voice telling her, “there’s no shame in being a widow, Helen.” Of course there was no shame–it wasn’t like a divorce that brought humiliation and devastation to everyone involved. Divorced women were pariahs in her grandmother’s opinion; they couldn’t even go to church, for heaven’s sake. But a widow, now, implied a certain amount of respectability that even a married woman did not possess.

Helen’s grandmother, who raised her after her parents had died, outlived her own husband by fifty years. He died on some obscure battlefield in eastern Europe, and every day until her own death, his devoted wife wore black. Helen secretly felt that this smacked of overkill, but who was she to argue with the dynamic force that had been her grandmother?

Helen smiled, a wry expression covering her face. For the first time in a week she had an evening free of sympathizers and gossipers. She had time–and no one to please but herself. Her grandmother, God rest her soul, would be shocked by the oversized plaid shirt and blue jeans that she wore. To top it off, she pulled on her thickest pair of wool socks and the brand new pair of men’s sneakers she had purchased for Charlie when the local Five and Dime had a liquidation sale last year.

“He never even had time to wear them,” she thought. The sneakers, one size too large, usually would have slid too much, but after a day of cleaning the house from attic to basement, her feet swelled another half-size and the thick socks filled the extra space.

Life without Charlie–it left her with so much extra time. Half the amount of laundry to wash, half the amount of food to cook–she spent her days demolishing dust and eliminating clutter. Her house now reeked of a lemon-fresh scent and every surface gleamed. Yet she still had so much extra time that she could swear she felt every passing minute.

Life without Charlie–minutes would turn into hours, hours would turn into days, and days would turn into years. She shook her head to clear it of the gloomy thoughts and stood up to check her reflection in the mirror. Grabbing a scrunchie, she pulled her long, blond hair back into a ponytail. Charlie always wanted her to wear her hair loose, but now . . . She refused to finish the thought and jammed a baseball cap on her head. She smiled again. Grandmother would definitely not approve. The outfit and her age did not mix; from a distance, she looked about twenty years younger. With her figure obscured by the flannel shirt and her hair tucked beneath the cap, she realized that she might even be mistaken for a teenage boy.

“Better safe than sorry,” she said to her reflection. “Especially tonight–a night in the lonesome October.”

She had always focused on that poem as something creepy–a suitable “literary” scare to read right before Halloween–but now she realized a deeper meaning. The Lonesome October–Poe had expressed the grief for his lost Ulalume just as she felt the grief of losing Charlie. And hadn’t he–Poe–written the poem as his wife lay dying? Or was it after her death? She just couldn’t remember and realized that it didn’t matter. Grief worked on the mind forever–it didn’t matter how fresh the wound happened to be.

It wasn’t exactly grief, she realized, so much as the loss that loomed up ahead–and the loneliness that sprang from that loss. Lonely, alone, for every minute of every hour of every day, year after year, until she spiraled into death.

“Losing Charlie–how fitting it should be in October,” she thought as she drew on a warm pair of gloves. “October used to be my favorite month, with its crisp, crunchy apples and red and gold leaves falling to the earth. And, of course, I could wear my comfy flannel shirts and cotton sweaters.” She paused for a moment, remembered the long walks she used to take in the woods near their cabin. She would sweep along the paths, kicking leaves, and gathering windfalls for the overstuffed pies she would bake for desert.

Of course, Charlie never wanted her to go walking alone in the woods. He worried about her being attacked–mugged or raped–or being eaten by wolves. Helen had to smile at this–in twenty years of walking in the woods or by the river, she had never even seen evidence of a wolf, and rarely run across another human being. She almost never saw the neighbors; the nearest family lived more than a mile away on the opposite side of the river.

“Oh, well,” Helen thought. “I suppose there is a first time for everything, so it’s better to be prepared.”

She picked up her handbag, resisting the urge to peek inside again. She knew from the unfamiliar weight what it contained.

During Helen’s massive cleaning project, she had stumbled across a box of her grandfather’s possessions–things that her grandmother apparently could not bear to toss. Helen remembered helping her grandmother move the box from house to house, finally storing it for the elderly woman when her health deteriorated and she moved into a nursing home. She had never sorted through the contents until last week. One week without Charlie–minutes stretching to hours, hours stretching to days . . .life without Charlie–and all those extra minutes to fill.

Nestled among several clean and starched men’s dress shirts, and wrapped in dry rags, she had found her grandfather’s 32 caliber, 5 shot revolver and a box of shells at the bottom of the box. Her grandfather had used this when he worked as a night security guard at Riverview Park in Chicago–an amusement park way ahead of its time. The modern amusement parks of today would dwarf it, but back then it was the only game in town.

That night, Helen had spent hours staring at the beautiful chrome finish. Her grandmother had evidently taken good care of the weapon. She could even smell the faint odor of gun oil. She wondered if the old woman had used it for protection when she lived alone. “Alone–just like me,” Helen had thought as she fingered the weapon. “It doesn’t look that hard to use. I guess you just point and shoot.”

Helen’s purse banged against her side, reminding her of its deadly cargo as she placedsome extra clothing and her house slippers on the back seat of her SUV. She smiled a bit as she thought how comfortable those slippers would feel after her long walk in the woods–even better than the oversized sneakers. She climbed in behind the wheel and set her purse on the front passenger seat. The handle curled around, resting in a coil.

She checked her watch. It would take over an hour to drive to the cabin and the sun had just dipped below the horizon. “Ah, night of all nights in the year,” she whispered as she backed the car out of the garage, shutting the door with the electric opener. “No wolves tonight, Charlie.”

A light mist started, then became a steady drizzle. She drove along, watching the headlights in the rain. The forecast called for heavy rains and flooding conditions in some of the low-lying areas. The river by their cabin always flooded at this time of year, when the October storms filled the sky.

She made a sharp turn on I 43; her purse slid against her leg. It felt warm, almost as if it pulsed with energy.

An hour later, she turned off the interstate and maneuvered her way to the small gravel lane that ran past the cabin. She came out of the mouth of the lane and parked her SUV behind a stand of trees near the old wooden bridge that crossed the river.

Helen stood on the bridge, a clear powerful image in her baseball cap, flannel shirt, jeans, and oversized shoes. She placed her gloved hands on the rail of the bridge; under it, the white water pounded against the embankments. She felt the tremble and hum of the bridge which heralded the onrush of the river and stared with an arrogant pleasure, knowing that whatever she dropped into the thundering and plunging rush of water would completely disappear.

Leaving the bridge, Helen ran through the woods along an animal trail, heedless of the rain soaking her clothes. It really didn’t matter; she would change into a dry outfit back at the vehicle. She saw the yellow glow from the cabin windows. Charlie would be there now, this lonesome October night. Last week he had packed up and moved to the cabin. It would make things easier, he had said, until the lawyers finalized the divorce.

Helen moved closer, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves. Standing beneath the creaking boughs, the wind and rain sent leaves, their edges sere, to spiral down near her feet.

She could see Charlie now–that strong profile she had once loved. She moved closer still–walked right up to the window–and pulled the trigger.

Life without Charlie–suddenly she felt that she could come to terms with it. After all, Helen reminded herself, there was no shame in being a widow.