The Wife's Tale

by Lori Lansens

  The sullen man climbed out of the vehicle and came around to release the side door. The women piled in. He paused to look at Mary.

  “I’m not with them,” she explained.

  When he laughed Mary turned to walk away, vaguely insulted, but all at once she felt pain like a bullet, a burning sensation in the spot between her eyes, that launched to her chest to cue the hammering of her heart. She grasped for the utility pole.

  The man stopped laughing. “Are you okay? Should I call an ambulance?”

  “No,” Mary said. “I just need to catch my breath.”

  He smiled and shrugged as if to say, I tried, and was set to close the door when he counted the women within the van. “I said meet me here with four girls, Rosa. Cuatro chicas.”

  “Sí,” the weary woman said from the back seat. “Cuatro chicas.” She counted the women in the van as proof. “Cuatro.”

  “Four counting you. Not four plus you. My boss said four. I can’t bring five.”

  “It’s okay,” she promised. “We share the money.”

  “I can’t bring five. I can’t bring five when he said four. One of you has to get out.”

  The women were silent at the indignity. Mary squinted through her pain, watching them as they turned to Rosa within the van and began a quiet conference of wide eyes and shifting brows and pursed lips until the matter was decided. Eight brown eyes turned on the smallest woman, who was also the youngest and, Mary saw as she stepped down from the vehicle, in the later stages of pregnancy.

  Coughing from the dust of the departing van, the young woman took a cellphone from her bag and attempted unsuccessfully to make a call. Cursing in her mother tongue, she turned to Mary, her smile towing the deep scar on her right upper lip. She looked too pregnant to be working as a house cleaner. And too young to be pregnant. “You have the cellphone?” she asked.

  “I don’t have a cellphone,” Mary apologized.

  The pregnant girl counted the bags in her hands, then looked up, ashen, to find the van disappearing down the road. She cursed in Spanish.

  Mary knew that look too well. “Did you lose something? Did you forget something?”

  “My lunch,” the girl said in careful English, before cursing in Spanish again. She rubbed her cumbersome belly and looked toward the street. “There is a bus?” she asked.

  Mary swivelled to look for the transit shelter and felt once again the calamitous pain in her head.

  “You are sick?” the young woman asked, recoiling slightly.

  “No,” Mary said, swaying. She closed her eyes and could almost hear the night clock in the roar of the traffic. She waited but the feeling did not pass, as she stood at the wreath-bedecked memorial on the dusty lot in Golden Hills, California, and saw that this was the end. She had never imagined such a death scene, and felt some strange thrill in the unexpected. So her final view would be of the blue sky and healing sun. Her last sound, horns on the 101 freeway. And the last person she would lay eyes upon would be a petite, pregnant Mexican girl with a scar on her upper lip. Maybe this girl was God. And had the power to forgive.

  Mary pried open her eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the divine. The girl was gone. No sign of her on the road. Perhaps she’d never been there at all. Counting heartbeats, Mary waited for the final sting, but the tightness eased in her chest and she breathed deeply, drawing the golden dust into her lungs. The pain in her head grew quiet too. Not now. Not here. Not yet. In the stillness, she prayed.

  If any of the passing drivers found the sight of a large white woman propping up the utility pole at the Mexicans’ dusty corner lot a surprising one, no one stopped to investigate. Grasping the pole, Mary had a sense of déjà vu, remembering her brave young self holding a metal mop handle during an electrical storm, attempting then, as now, to do the extraordinary.

  Pushing off from the pole, she started toward the hotel, tentative steps at first, then longer strides. Not me. Not here. Not now. She wished she were a writer like Gooch, that she might make a poem of her gratitude for the gift of second chances.

  Breathless, glistening with the sheen of victory, she entered the hotel lobby, remembering her promise to babysit. She wondered if the warmth washing over her was endorphins from her labour or if the feeling was anticipation of the night ahead, as she recognized that the little boys might be something like the tribe she had longed for. She glanced toward the window of the hotel restaurant as she passed, and was surprised to see the pregnant Mexican girl from the corner lot nursing an iced tea in one of the back booths.

  She studied the girl, whose eyes darted from the watch on her wrist to the parking lot beyond the windows to the breakfast platter sitting untouched in front of an elderly man at the next table. Though she typically stayed out of restaurants, and never approached buffets, Mary entered, following a mysterious impulse. As all eyes in the crowded place, some more discreetly than others, clocked her movement toward the smorgasbord, she began to perspire. She shouted at herself silently—What the hell are you doing?

  Standing before the bounty on display—thick slices of juicy roast beef and lemon-pepper chicken, creamy macaroni, salty diced potatoes, hot buttered rice—she suddenly understood why she’d come in. She collected a tray and plate and addressed the meats. Undecided between the beef and chicken, she put both on her plate, then a scoop of macaroni, the rice, a cob of steaming corn and several rolls with butter. She could feel the eyes of the other diners boring through the tissue of her back as she added a parfait glass of pudding and a slice of cherry pie to her tray. Two cartons of milk. A bottle of iced tea. The cashier did not meet her eye as she paid for the food.

  Gliding past the other diners, she found the girl with the scar on her lip and set the mountain of food down before her. The girl looked up. Pretty almond eyes, like in the picture of Jesús García’s wife. Young enough to be his daughter. Or Mary’s. “Buen provecho,” she said. “Eat.”

  The girl’s gratitude was implied in her acceptance as she tore into the beef. Mary stood at the table, moved by her mastication, living her hunger, but not for food. Giddy in her gluttony, the pregnant girl did not see Mary leave the restaurant, as the other diners had, swallowing a lump in her throat.

  Back in her hotel room, Mary settled down to read but could not focus. There were still two hours before she was expected at Ronni Reeves’s for her babysitting job. Ample time to accommodate the hour-long wait for the taxi. The small print blurred as the pain between her eyes sharpened and Heather’s face invaded her vision.

  She closed the book, pushing aside thoughts of Heather to fantasize about Gooch’s return. She’d have to find something to wear. Something green to play up her eyes. She decided she’d like to have their reunion at Eden’s instead of the hotel, in the backyard, under the shimmering eucalyptus. She thought of Gooch’s face upon seeing her, how he would lift his shoulders and smile that wan smile—his way of saying, Ah, life—and how Mary would nod twice and tilt her head, her way of saying, I know.

  No matter what conclusions he might have arrived at, no matter what clarity he’d found in conversations with God, he would be devastated by his sister’s death. Mary hoped Eden would be spared the burden of telling him. In her mind’s eye she saw herself with Gooch, folded into too-small airplane seats on their way back to Canada, wondering what to do with Heather’s remains. “She liked the water,” Gooch might whisper. “She was such a fish when she was young.” Or he’d have gone with dark humour and suggested sprinkling her ashes over a field of poppies, or maybe hemp.

  Mary called the front desk for a taxi, and sat quietly in the back seat when it arrived. Passing the growing memorial at the corner, she scanned the faces in the thin crowd of men, wondering if Jesús García was among them, waiting for his uncle with the bad hip, the stolen yellow sandals hidden in the duffel bag he brought to work.

  Imagining the yellow sandals among the carpet of shoes at the front door of the teeming house, she remembered that Jesús had said he worked at the
plaza, which made his offence seem even bolder. She guessed that the sandals were a present for his plump, pretty wife. But wouldn’t she find that odd? Or had he stolen before, different styles and sizes, to add to the impressive collection by the door?

  Annoyed at her curiosity about Jesús García, Mary turned her thoughts back to Gooch, the mystery of one man enough for now. She wondered if Gooch would like her red hair.

  TILL DEATH US DO PART

  The black Lincoln Navigator was parked beside the big Ram in the driveway of abandoned wife Ronni Reeves when Mary arrived by taxi at 5:45. As she approached, she heard a symphony leaking out the windows and doors—the shouting percussive mother, the trilling trio of children, the bass barking dog. The thought of a night alone in the hotel was suddenly appealing, but Mary could not stop her feet from carrying her up the walkway, or her finger from pressing the buzzer.

  The sound of screaming was instantly replaced by the natter of a television cranked too loud. After a long moment the door opened. Ronni Reeves, red-faced and puffy-eyed, was attempting to smile. “Hi Mary. Come in.”

  “I heard … from the street … it sounded—”

  “Everything’s fine,” Ronni said, surprised to see that Mary was still dressed in the navy scrubs she had had on earlier. “They’re just a little wound up tonight.”

  Mary smoothed her smock over her round stomach, as if that could excuse her poor choice of fashion. “I suppose you get used to the noise.”

  A commotion beyond the door. A shriek of pain. Children screaming. Ronni inhaled sharply. “Boys!” she shouted, clapping her hands. The dog barked from a distant room as the boys bawled over each other.

  “Oh dear,” Mary said.

  “My husband left us six weeks ago,” Ronni said. “None of us are coping well.”

  “You said that before.”

  “I told you? I already told you that? God, the neighbours don’t even know yet.”

  The noise of breaking glass. The women shared a look before busting down the hallway, finding the three boys standing in the back room amidst the shattered remains of a large TV. The triplets had been shocked dumb by the accident, and stayed put when Mary instructed them, “Don’t move.” She plucked each boy to safety, lifting them over the shore of glass pebbles to the arms of their broken mother.

  “I just want to scream,” Ronni said quietly.

  Mary understood, and led her toward the front door. “Go. Just go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We’ll be fine. I’ve got your number. Go.”

  “Thank you, Mary. Thank you.” Ronni reached for her handbag, kissed each boy on the head and said, “You boys be good for Mrs. Gooch.” She did not so much leave as flee. Mary watched her pull out of the driveway and turned to find the children at her heel.

  “I wanna watch TV!” Joshua shouted.

  The other boys agreed loudly. Mary studied them a moment. “Okay then …”

  She led them to the back room but stopped, pretending to be surprised. “Oh dear, boys. The television is broken.”

  “We wanna watch it!” Joshua yelled.

  “But it’s broken.”

  “No fair!” he screamed.

  “TV, TV, TV,” the other two chanted.

  “I am so sorry, boys, but I broke your TV,” Mary explained.

  Joshua stopped wailing, “You didn’t break it.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “We broke it,” he insisted, outraged.

  “Well then, you have only yourselves to blame,” Mary said, shrugging.

  The triplets studied the strange woman heading into their kitchen. “What are we gonna do?”

  “I used to like crayons. I can show you how to draw a puppy.”

  They shrugged and found seats at the kitchen table. “The craft box is there,” Joshua said, pointing to a basket half-filled with torn colouring books and broken crayons. Mary found a few blank pages and sat down with the boys. “I have a few tricks to draw a puppy. Even a two-year-old could do it.”

  “We’re three,” they said at once.

  “Oh, three, well then you’ll have no trouble. If you’re three I can show you the tricks for a kitten and a horse too.”

  Once the children were involved in their artistic pursuits, stubby fingers leading crayons, pink tongues lolling on lips, Mary stopped to glance around the beautiful open-concept home. She wondered at the pleasure Ronni Reeves must have had in decorating it, even if her choices had been ill advised. The furniture, too elegant for a home with three boys, was nicked and torn, badly stained and dented. What did that say of the poor woman’s marriage? It was unthinkable that the three beautiful boys could have ruined the union the way they had the decor, but Mary could see the trajectory—the new mother harried and overwrought, the husband underappreciated and neglected. She too tired and resentful for love, searching for it elsewhere. The miracle, Mary thought, was that any marriage survived.

  Till death us do part. Did brides and grooms still say that to each other? Wouldn’t that be the height of hypocrisy, when each entered the union knowing the odds were fifty-fifty they’d endure? Mary wondered if the encroachment of obesity on North America’s population had risen in tandem with divorce statistics. The mistaking of gluttony for fulfillment. So often a spouse spoke of wanting more. Needing more. Not having enough. Her own marriage was less enduring than endured, at least by Gooch, as evidenced by his departure. So what had kept them together all these years? Beyond inertia?

  There must have been some force exchanged by their bodies, even after they’d stopped connecting in the physical sense. Love, or the potent memory of it, mysterious and complex. She remembered that it had been just the past Labour Day that she’d laughingly told Gooch about overhearing Ray’s comments about her ass. Gooch had risen, seething, from the red vinyl chair in the kitchen and started for the door. She’d stopped him from driving to Raymond Russell’s to confront her boss, but had secretly adored his rage. Loyalty. Not bound by a gold band around a designated finger, but kept in the core like a vital organ.

  She was pausing, purple crayon over fresh white paper, her mind frozen on a picture from her wedding day, when she was poked by a tiny, bitten finger. “You’re fat,” Joshua said, his hand disappearing into the fold at her navel.

  Tickled by the intrusion, and charmed by the twisted mouth of the tow-headed boy, Mary found his hand. “You don’t want to tell someone they’re fat,” she said gently.

  “Why?” he asked, blinking.

  “Because they already know.” Mary winked.

  “You’re fatter’n Uncle Harley,” Jacob decided.

  She laughed. The boys appeared to have no negative connotation for the word, as if it was just another shape in their primary hearts. Circle. Square. Fat.

  After colouring for a time, Mary made paper airplanes for Jacob and Jeremy. When they started dropping crayon bombs on each other, she found a bookcase filled with children’s books and gathered the little boys on the sofa in the formal living room. The three squirming shapes soon moulded themselves against her big, warm body as she read aloud the books they pressed into her hand, one resting sticky fingers on her arm, another absently twisting her red hair, the third climbing aboard her thigh, captivated by the simplest of narratives. Mary sighed, touched lovingly by hands not her own.

  After reading eleven books, three of them twice, she was parched but nonetheless disappointed to hear a car in the driveway. She lifted herself from the sofa and moved to the window, her heart skipping a beat when she saw that it was not the black Navigator but a silver Mercedes. She told the boys to stay on the sofa as she went to answer the front door. “Hello,” she said, to the wiry, dark-haired man on the porch.

  “Who are you?” the man shot back, trying to look past her into the house.

  “I’m the babysitter.”

  His expression was critical of both her size and her attire. “Are you from the service?”

  “Family friend,” Mary said confidentl
y.

  “Where’s Ronni?” He tried to push past her but she blocked the door. “Boys!” he shouted into the house. “Joshua! Jacob! Jeremy!”

  The boys stormed the hallway, barrelling into the wiry man’s arms, shrieking, “Daddy!” The big shaggy dog, who’d been sleeping near the sofa, began to bark and howl, nipping at the father’s heels.

  “I’m taking them for ice cream,” the man shouted over the dog, carting the delighted boys to his still-running car.

  “No!” Mary objected. “You can’t take them! You can’t take them anywhere!”

  He hustled the boys into his car as Mary continued shouting and the big dog protested with angry barks of his own. She danced around the car as he shut the children inside. “You haven’t even buckled them in!” she cried. But he climbed into the driver’s seat and jammed the car into reverse. Panicked, Mary raced around to the back of the vehicle and stopped the silver trunk with her hands. The dog joined her there, no longer barking at the man but at her.

  The boys’ father rolled down his window, laughing at the absurdity of the large redhead standing behind his car under siege by a barking dog. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he called. The dog ran around to his side of the car, jumping at him through the window. Mary folded her arms, leaning her rear against the trunk. He called her bluff, releasing his foot from the brake. She stood firm, the heat from the exhaust burning her leg.

  From the corner of her eye Mary saw Ronni Reeves tearing up in her Navigator, blocking the Mercedes. The mother climbed out of her vehicle, shouting obscenities at her glaring husband. Mary opened the door to the Mercedes and lifted the boys out, the shaggy dog herding them all back into the house, to shield them from an obscene vocabulary lesson as their warring parents drew blood in the driveway.

  When she stepped through the front door a few minutes later, Ronni looked battered. “I’m so sorry that happened, Mary.”

  “Now the neighbours know,” Mary said.

  Ronni winced. “He is such an asshole.”

  “The boys might hear you,” Mary cautioned, but the children had already fled to the kitchen to tease the still-barking dog.