The Wife's Tale

by Lori Lansens

  “It’s okay.”

  She bit her lip, unconvinced. “You’re waiting for your cousin?”

  “He’s late.”

  “I’ll drive you home.” When he shook his head, she insisted. “Please.” He jogged around to the passenger door as the other men shouted protests in Spanish.

  Mary found her way to the highway. “You’ll have to remind me of the exit. I know it’s somewhere in Hundred Oaks.”

  He took a breath. “You don’t want to go around just giving people money. Even if your husband did win millions on the lottery.”

  “Not millions.”

  “It’s none of my business. Just, you shouldn’t be so trusting.”

  “Twenty-five thousand. That’s what he put in my account.”

  “You shouldn’t tell people that.”

  “I’ve spent my whole life not telling anyone anything, Hay-su. My husband, Gooch, won the scratch lottery, and then he left me. That’s why I came to California. He needed some time to think. That’s why I’m here. I don’t think it’ll be much longer now. I expect to hear from him any minute, really. He won the money. So you see what I mean? The money? I feel like it’s not really mine.”

  He shifted uncomfortably.

  She turned, addressing his profile. “You must think I’m such a fool.”

  “I don’t think you’re a fool.”

  “Pathetic, then. You must think I’m pathetic. A pathetic wife come all the way to California to wait for the husband who left her.”

  He shrugged, watching the horizon.

  “I won’t wait forever.”

  “No.”

  “But for now.”

  “Sure.” Jesús tried to change the subject. “It’s almost Thanks-giving. You have that in Canada too, right? Back home in Detroit, wouldn’t be long before we’d have our sleds out for the early snow. We used to ski, too. The only Mexicans at Pine Knob.”

  “I never skied.”

  “But you skated? Everybody skates.”

  “A little. On the Thames River. Doesn’t freeze over any more.”

  “Global warming,” he said, nodding.

  “Have your children ever seen the snow?”

  He shook his head.

  “You should take them one day. Sledding and skating and whatnot.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have they played hockey? That’s our national sport. But being from Detroit, you must have played hockey. I suppose you wouldn’t have a lot of arenas down here. Do they play? Your boys?”

  “They were killed three years ago. My wife. My sons.”

  The news was so shocking that Mary wondered if she’d heard him right. She was mystified by his matter-of-factness.

  “They were walking home from school. Drunk driver jumped the curb. The guy had a suspended licence. Prior convictions.”

  Mary swallowed, without words, as the ghosts of his family stole the air from the truck. A fait accompli. Get a drink from the hose and push on. But how did one push on from such an unimaginable loss? How did one wake each morning, dress, eat, walk, breathe under the weight of such grief?

  “I was working at Amgen. We were saving up for a second car. Two more paycheques. But after, I didn’t leave the house except to go to the library. Then my mother-in-law came from Mexico. Then my brother-in-law. Then … well … you saw them.”

  A hundred shoes. A hundred sorrows. “I don’t have any children,” she said, which he did not seem to find inappropriate.

  “I shouldn’t have told you. Please don’t cry.”

  Mary wrestled for self-control. It was the least she could do for the strong, broken man. They drove the rest of the way in silence, Jesús pointing out the way, until they arrived at the tiny house with the square of patchy brown grass. He lingered. “You’re a nice lady, Mary. I hope your husband comes back soon.”

  She nodded, watching him, waving as he disappeared inside the house.

  Rolling down the road, back toward the highway, passing the box stores and chain stores, she wondered how her foot pressed the gas or her hands turned the wheel when she was so utterly numb. She could not say what possessed her to obey a red and yellow sign that beckoned, Enter. She pulled in, stopped at the menu board, trembling as she called into the speaker, “Three double cheeseburgers. Extra-crispy chicken combo. Strawberry shake. Fish sandwich.” She took the grease-soaked bags at the next window, nodding when the cashier asked if she was all right.

  Pulling into a parking spot, barely remembering to put the truck in park, Mary tore open the bags, grabbing at the burning fries, gobbling the burger, stuffing her mouth with the salty fried chicken. Her body fought the assault. She could not swallow. She opened the door and released the mess, heaving with dry convulsions. Taking the bags to the nearby trash can and hurling them inside, she looked up toward the heavens at the long-departed stars.

  MERCY

  Jack rallied and failed and rallied and lingered, not for days but weeks, and even Eden had to question God’s mercy. Time sped forward as she watched daily the murky pool grow clearer, and shift from green to blue, but it was not Jesús García who came when it was Pool’s Gold day to clean. He’d been replaced by a taller man who did not take off the top of his overalls or handle the tablets with yellow gloves. Mary was sure his disappearance had something to do with his tragic confession, and was sorry to think she might never see him again.

  The prayer group moved their meeting location to the chapel at the hospital but Mary declined Eden’s invitation to join, believing that Jack needed focus from the members, not the meandering mind of a searcher.

  The sun rose and fell over the passing days as she danced to the rhythm of her new life. She awoke at daybreak to collect the Los Angeles Times bundle waiting at the end of Eden’s sun-bleached driveway. While Eden slept, or while she prepared for her visits to the hospital, Mary read the small print, addicted to news of the world the way she once had been to celebrity gossip.

  As a freshman student of the morning papers, she realized that political nuance was still lost to her, or perhaps she just didn’t understand the country in which she was guest. She read with interest an article questioning voters’ response to the religious affiliation of various political hopefuls, with speculation over whose God would be more or less damaging in the polls. She wished that Gooch were sitting beside her to help her fill in the blanks, and she wished that God would tell them all to keep her the hell out of politics.

  Finished with the newspapers, she would set to work cleaning the house, preparing meals that went uneaten, after which she would drive to spend afternoons with the triplets, bringing a craft box filled with pipe cleaners and clay and glue and glitter. She was delighted to find such willing artists in the triplets, and was reminded what it felt like to create. And she was grateful for the companionship of their mother, a friend in need.

  There was the daily phone call to St. John’s to check on Irma. A long walk through the Highlands in the evening if she was not babysitting. Every other day she made a trip to the bank, and had several more times found additional funds withdrawn from the account. Four hundred dollars. Four hundred dollars. The last trip had shown a withdrawal of five thousand dollars, which had briefly sent her into a spiral, for she couldn’t guess what it meant. An airline ticket to a distant destination? Payment for a gambling debt?

  Driving around the pretty town in her borrowed truck, Mary’d noticed more memorials to the beloved dead painted on the back windows of cars and trucks. And there were so many personalized licence plates. And bumper stickers—everyone had bumper stickers. She liked the one that read, Sometimes you have to believe to see. She’d noticed a few stickers shouting, America. Love it or leave it, and decided that the challenge was distinctly unpatriotic. She mused on the different personalities of Canada and America, wondering what conclusions Gooch was drawing as he fraternized with the Yanks, wherever he was. She imagined him engaged in hot political debates in some country saloon. But then, Ronni Reeves had told
her that Americans didn’t much talk about politics unless they were on the same side.

  Gooch had found friends, she was certain, and she wondered if within his circle he’d also found a lover. Terrified as she was by the prospect of losing him forever, she could not hate him for any imagined infidelities. She understood loneliness. Had a fleeting memory of desire. Perhaps she still did possess a remnant of denial, though, for she imagined that he was too preoccupied by his thoughts to have fallen in love.

  Daily, Mary drove past the place where the intersections met, telling herself it was because she preferred the gas station near the dusty corner lot, or needed to stop at the convenience store for something Eden might need, not because she hoped to see Jesús García. She walked the length of plaza in front of Pool’s Gold, telling herself it was for the exercise, not because she hoped she might run into him coming out of work, or scoping the shoe store where he had stolen the yellow sandals.

  When she knew Eden would be at the hospital for a long stretch in the evenings, she’d drive down to the ocean to study the stars. On mornings when she’d risen especially early, she’d go there to watch the sun rise over the cliffs, moved by splendid nature. Mary continued to shrink, and proceeded to grow.

  While the rest of Golden Hills was enjoying roast turkey and sweet potato pie on Thanksgiving, Jack breathed his last, with Eden and his three daughters surrounding his chronic-care bed. Eden felt that his death falling on the Thanksgiving holiday was auspicious. There was much to be thankful for, she said. A twenty-five-year marriage to the man she loved. A final mercy in seeing Jack’s forgiveness of his misguided daughters. Or was it the other way around?

  On the morning of Jack’s funeral, Eden, dressed in black, emerged from her bedroom looking tiny and afraid. Mary drew her to the table in the backyard for a cup of hot tea. They didn’t even pretend they’d eat breakfast. “I had a dream about Jimmy last night,” Eden said.

  Mary still dreamed of him every night.

  “I dreamed that we were standing around Jack’s grave throwing dirt on the casket, and when I looked up, there was Jimmy. I forgot how handsome he was. People say when someone dies, you forget what they looked like. They say you lose the details of their features. They say that after a while you can’t remember their faces.”

  “You won’t forget Jack’s face.”

  “When I woke up, I had this feeling like I was late for the hospital. I suppose it’ll take some time to adjust.” Mary nodded, sure that it would. “One of the ladies was saying she could get me into that retirement village in Westlake. They offer subsidies for people like me. I’ll have to think about that at some point.”

  “Yes.” She admired Eden’s survival instinct.

  “I always thought I’d die with Jack. But I’m still here.”

  “You’re still here.”

  “God has other plans for me. I just have to trust in that.” Eden sighed deeply, watching a big black crow land in the eucalyptus tree beyond the glimmering pool. “Jack just loves birds. He used to feed them out here but it made such a mess. We’re going to release white doves after the burial. The prayer group arranged it as a tribute.”

  Mary prepared food for the wake, grateful for the excuse to miss the funeral since she’d arranged to be at Ronni Reeves’s to sit for the boys. Eden didn’t protest, and Mary wondered if it was because she hadn’t told everyone about her lost son and waiting daughter-in-law, and was just as happy not to have to explain. Or maybe she realized that Mary had nothing to wear to a funeral, and would stand out in her navy pants and Jack’s polo shirt like the sorest of thumbs.

  The triplets were excited to see Mary at their door, clamouring, “What are we gonna make today?”

  Ronni did not always leave immediately when Mary arrived to babysit. On the day of Jack’s funeral, Mary covered the boys with smocks and suggested finger painting outside. As the children splashed colour onto their canvases, Ronni Reeves lingered at the door. “Have you checked the bank today?”

  Mary nodded. “He made another withdrawal.”

  “And you asked if you could find out where the money’s being taken out?”

  “They won’t give out that information over the phone.”

  “Bastards.”

  “I’m sure he had some good reason.”

  “What if he’s just dropped out, Mary?”

  Mary had considered that scenario, of course—Gooch missing but not presumed dead. People did surprising things.

  “Have you thought about what you’re going to do?” Ronni asked.

  After Ronni left, Mary cleaned up the paint-splattered boys and hung their creations on the corkboard in the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator, put off by the smell of the leftover Thanksgiving dinner. When she suggested a snack of turkey sandwiches the boys screwed up their faces. “Turkey smells like farts,” Jeremy announced.

  She prepared peanut butter on apple slices, imagining the doves flapping over the cemetery.

  “I like donuts,” Joshua complained.

  “Me too.” Mary smiled, thinking of the Oakwood. “But they don’t like me.”

  “Do you give donuts to your kids?” Jeremy asked.

  “I don’t have any kids.”

  “Why?” Joshua asked, licking the peanut butter.

  “I just don’t,” she said, finding the lump in her throat.

  “If you had kids, would you give ’em donuts?” Jacob asked.

  “Well, sometimes, I guess. But they’re not good for your body. They’re made of fat and sugar.”

  “I like fatten sugar.”

  “You might. But your body doesn’t want that stuff.”

  “Yes it do,” Joshua corrected. “If you get some kids, are you gonna give ’em donuts?”

  Mary smiled and rose from the table to avoid further conversation about children and donuts. She caught sight of her reflection in the gleaming steel of the Sub-Zero refrigerator; the oversized polo shirt, the uniform pants, which felt larger by the day, the flicker of silver roots at her scalp. She checked the calendar on the corkboard and counted the days since her silver anniversary. Five weeks.

  Ronni Reeves arrived home later, hefting a shopping bag, wearing a grin. She drew Mary into the living room and pulled clothes out of the bag—a pair of drawstring denims, several pretty blouses, a long black skirt. “Those are never going to fit you,” Mary said.

  Ronni laughed. “They’re for you!”

  “For me?”

  “I was in the mall at Hundred Oaks and I thought, being from out of town, you might not know where to shop.”

  Mary took the bundle of clothes, looking at the tags, noting that they were three sizes smaller than her regular size. “Oh, these will never fit me either.”

  “Try them on. If they don’t fit I’ll take them back.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “You owe me nothing. I owe you, Mary. It’s selfish, I know, but I hope you never go back to Canada.”

  Mary laughed and took the clothes to the privacy of the bathroom. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, she pulled off her navy bottoms and polo shirt. That awful grey bra puckering at the breast and sagging beneath her arms. Her underwear, shapeless from daily washing. She studied her reflection. Feathers lost from a pillow, air from a balloon, her aging, collagen-depleted epidermis hung in pouches over her pubis and in folds around her torso. She wondered where it might end.

  The clothes fit. They were even a tad too large. She imagined walking into St. John’s in the elastic-waist blue jeans and fresh crisp blouse to find her mother in her chair at the window. If Irma could have recognized her, she wouldn’t have. Ronni was delighted when Mary stepped back into the living room. “You look ten years younger,” she announced, “except you’re going to have to do something about those grey roots.”

  It was dark when Mary returned to Eden’s, and she was surprised to find the house empty and already tidied up. Everything as it had been. Nothing as it was. She moved through the h
ouse, checking the rooms, and found Eden in the backyard staring up at the eucalyptus, just as she had done that morning.

  Eden saw Mary out of the corner of her eye and raised her finger to shush her, then pointed to the tree. It took a moment for Mary’s eyes to find, amid the leaves, a squat, shadowed owl perched on a high grey branch.

  “That’s a screech owl,” Eden whispered. “But they don’t really screech at all. They sound like babies.” The owl flapped away, insulted. “They’re the reason you don’t see stray cats around here. Them and the coyotes. You wouldn’t leave a small dog out overnight, either.”

  Mary moved to the pool, kicking off her shoe, setting her toe in the cool, clean water.

  “You look better,” Eden said, gesturing at her new clothes. “You always did have such a pretty face. I remember thinking that on your wedding day. You were such a beautiful bride.”

  “I lost the baby,” Mary said, shaking the water from her foot.

  Eden paused. “I know.”

  Mary looked up. “I lost the baby the night before. I had a miscarriage the night before. Before the wedding.”

  “I know.”

  Mary was struck dumb.

  “When Jack and I drove up to London to see you in the hospital, I asked the doctor, and he told me point-blank.”

  “He told you?”

  “He thought I was your mother. He asked me if you’d had any cramping in the night and he said you likely lost … well … he said you might not have been aware it was happening, but it was likely that you’d lost the baby the night before.”

  “I did.”

  “Even then, I knew you knew.”

  “Did you tell Gooch?”

  “Of course.” Reeling at Eden’s confession, Mary hid her face in the sky. “He said it didn’t matter.”

  “He did?”

  “He said he loved you. He said no one knew you the way he did.”

  Her secret had been no secret at all. Gooch had known all along.

  “When you lost the second baby I thought it was a blessing, Mary. I really did. I never expected the two of you to last. I thought it would be harder if you had children. Maybe I was wrong about that.”