American Wife

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  The pastor was a man I hardly knew, Gordon Kluting, who opened the service by saying, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of all mercy and the God of all consolations.” After his greeting, we sang “Jesus, Lead Thou On,” then there was the Litany and the Twenty-third Psalm, my mother reading from the book of Revelation (she was largely inaudible), and then it was my turn to read from the Beatitudes in Matthew 5: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they will be comforted . . . I was glad to have been assigned this reading instead of my mother’s, because of its tone of compassion rather than faith; after all these years, my faith remained decidedly shaky. That the world was miraculous, frequently in inexplicable ways, I would not argue. That these miracles had any relationship to the buildings we called churches, to the sequences of words we called prayers—that I was less sure of. Mostly, I found a place among believers, whether in Calvary Lutheran or at Christ the Redeemer, which was the Episcopal church we attended in Milwaukee, through isolated lines from the Bible, sometimes out of context. From the Letter of Paul to the Philippians, for example: For I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. I know how to be humbled, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need . . . In simple ideas or graceful language, I felt a resonance that was absent when I took Communion or said most prayers. (The Nicene Creed, with its exclusionary, aggressive certainty, made me particularly uncomfortable, and sometimes, if I thought I could do so inconspicuously, I refrained from saying it; but if, for instance, it was Christmas Eve and I was in the pew next to Priscilla Blackwell, that simply wasn’t a stand worth taking.) I considered it important to raise Ella in the church, if for no other reason than that years in the future, should she wish to take solace in religion, she would have a foundation for doing so; she would not need to seek it out as a stranger. The irony, then, was that on most weekends, I was the one who made sure we attended Christ the Redeemer. Early on in our time in Milwaukee, Charlie had been enthusiastic, but I think that had been related more to establishing us as a married couple in the community than to his faith, which was of the default variety. In Charlie’s mind, of course there was a God; of course we ought to pray to Him, especially at Christmas and Easter and in times of unrest; and no, it was not wrong to impose on Him even with our smallest concerns (that was what, like a concierge at a fancy hotel, He was there for). In recent years, Charlie had become less diligent about going each Sunday to Christ the Redeemer, and sometimes Ella and I went without him; she attended Sunday school, which she loved because the teacher was a nineteen-year-old named Bonnie who had a prosthetic eye, and at the end of classes during which the children had behaved, she would remove it for them. Bonnie had lost the eye, Ella somberly informed me, when she was three and her older brother shot a rubber band at her, but Bonnie had long since forgiven her brother because, as Ella reminded me, quoting Jesus, “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you.”

  It was as I was concluding my reading of the Beatitudes that I looked out and caught sight of Harold Blackwell, sitting in the church’s second-to-last occupied row. This was when I first felt tears well in my eyes. Even Jadey had not come—I had told her she didn’t need to, and I’d had the sense she was relieved. Harold had made a special trip back to Wisconsin, I realized. And while my grandmother herself had been wary of Harold’s political leanings, I was very moved. When I returned to my seat in the first pew, sliding past Lars and my mother into the space between Ella and Charlie, Charlie squeezed my hand and whispered, “Nice job.”

  After the homily, Pastor Kluting delivered a eulogy that I didn’t think captured my grandmother—among other things, he referred to her as a pillar of the Riley community—and following the Apostle’s Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Prayer of Commendation, the final hymn we sang was “Lift High the Cross.” Again I became choked up. It wasn’t that anything in the song reflected my grandmother, but it was a song I had heard and sung since I was a child, and as the organ played and the church was filled, or partially filled, by the voices of people who knew my family, there reared up in me a terrible sadness. Oh, how different my life would have been had I not grown up in the same house with my grandmother, how much narrower and blander! She was the reason I was a reader, and being a reader was what had made me most myself; it had given me the gifts of curiosity and sympathy, an awareness of the world as an odd and vibrant and contradictory place, and it had made me unafraid of its oddness and vibrancy and contradictions. And would I have married Charlie if not for my grandmother? Surely not, less because of her high opinion of him on their first meeting than because of the qualities they shared, the traits I valued in him because I’d valued them first in her: mischief and humor and irreverence, an implied intelligence rather than an asserted one. He stood beside me now, I could see his gray suit in my peripheral vision, and I thought, hadn’t my grandmother been right about everything else? From fashion to education to helping me end my mistaken pregnancy, when had she not looked out for me, what had she ever misguessed? And must not she have been right, therefore, about him, too?

  Her casket was on wheels, and the pallbearers were men from the funeral director’s office. During the last verse of the song, they walked down the aisle first, then the pastor, then the family members, and I could tell that my mother was smiling at people hostess-style and also crying. In the car en route to the cemetery—we had not rented a limousine, even then, people in Riley didn’t do such things—Ella leaned into the front seat and tapped my shoulder; Charlie was driving, and I was sitting in the passenger seat. When I turned, Ella seemed earnest, as if she’d been giving the subject serious thought. She said, “I think Granny would like my dress.”

  AT THE RECEPTION afterward, which was at our house on Amity Lane, I had just set a dish of Jell-O salad on the dining room table when Charlie slipped up behind me and said, “You think you’ll want to linger here awhile or get on the road?” He was chewing the last of something—it appeared to be the cold bacon-cheese dip, served with potato chips, that I had only ever seen at funerals—and he swallowed and wiped his hands on a cocktail napkin.

  “Are you in a hurry?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to make you feel pressed, so if you’re trying to tie up loose ends here, maybe Ella and I should catch a ride back with Dad. Just a thought.”

  Nearly everyone from the funeral was sprinkled in the living room and dining room. The graveside ceremony had been short, and we’d arrived back at the house fifteen minutes earlier. Harold approached us then, standing between Charlie and me and setting a hand on each of our backs. (Since our arrival at the house, I’d sensed the other guests noticing Harold’s presence, nudging one another and whispering—I think that’s Governor Blackwell. But Harold either didn’t realize it or was so accustomed to it, he paid no attention.) He said, “Alice, on behalf of the extended family, all of us are holding you and your grandmother in our hearts today.”

  “It was very good of you to come,” I said.

  “Where could I be that would be more important? I’m only sorry I have to take off now, but I’m due in San Diego for a speech this evening. As you can imagine, Priscilla was terribly sorry to miss being here.”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  “We just couldn’t love you one bit more,” he said, and as we hugged, I thought how there was nothing else in the world as endearing to me as Harold Blackwell’s sentimental streak. It was enough to make me wonder if there were other elected officials I was as wrong about as I’d been about him. Were there men (and it would be primarily men) who, instead of creating personas that were fakely righteous and honorable, were the opposite: fakely cruel, fakely callous? Men who, through the distortion of the media or a perceived pressure to act a certain way, sublimated, at least in public, their own decency and kindness?r />
  When our embrace was finished, Harold patted Charlie on the shoulder. “Look after her, son,” he said, and Charlie said, “Think you’ve got room in your Batmobile for two more?”

  “Sweetheart, you can stay,” I said. “You really won’t be in the way.”

  Charlie didn’t make eye contact with me as he said, “Yeah, see, I’ve got kind of a work thing that came up. Kind of a major thing, actually, otherwise you know I’d postpone it.”

  “Your brothers understand that you need to be with Alice today,” Harold said, and I said, “What is it?”

  Charlie hesitated. “I’d prefer not to get too specific. Word of honor, I’ll tell you both the minute I can. Lindy, you’re thinking you’ll be home, what, around five or five-thirty?”

  “Are you sure you can’t say what it is?”

  His lips stretched into an apologetic wince. “Give me a couple days, can you do that? It’s come up all of a sudden, and I want to hold off on talking about it until it’s more of a done deal.” To his father, he said, “I’ll collect Ella and meet you out front?” He leaned in and kissed me. “See you tonight by dinnertime?”

  When Charlie was gone, I felt that Harold and I were implicated in a shared embarrassment—we were, after all, Charlie’s father and wife. In a tone of feigned lightheartedness, I said, “I fully expect you to get it out of him on the ride home and report back to me!” I expected no such thing.

  “All very cloak-and-dagger, isn’t it?” Harold shook his head. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do.”

  ONE OF THE last people to leave the reception was Lillian Janaszewski, Dena’s mother. I had already started carrying plates and glasses into the kitchen when she stopped me, saying, “Alice, you haven’t sat still all afternoon. You’re just like Dorothy.”

  “Thank you for coming,” I said. “It’s so nice to see you.” I had repeated these words, or slight variations on them, so many times that day that they’d become automatic, as had the micro-update I provided on my life, as had the fleeting remembrances of my grandmother: Yes, Charlie and I are still in Milwaukee. Ella’s nine now, she’s finishing up third grade. She’s over there, yes, that’s her with the long hair. Or, She just left—I know, I’m sorry you missed her. Charlie and I are very lucky. Or, I know, my grandmother was wonderful, wasn’t she? This part of the funerary proceedings also seemed to have far less to do with my grandmother as a person than with decorum, to the extent that, as I listened to myself chatter, I felt pangs of disloyalty. But what was the alternative? How could I bear to vividly and realistically remember her with everyone? She found Riley somewhat dull. She was an excellent bridge player. She never lifted a finger to cook or clean, even when she was younger and more spry and easily could have done so, and she smoked constantly, including around her granddaughter. She liked Anna Karenina because she loved the characters, but she thought War and Peace was tediously political, and she stayed abreast of current fashion into her nineties, despairing of the trend toward wearing exercise clothes at all hours of the day; she also claimed Laura Ashley dresses looked like they were meant for peasants. She had a longtime love affair with another woman, which none of us really talked about, and then they broke up, and we hardly talked about that, either. There was a way in which my grandmother’s true self was not these guests’ business; no one’s true self was the business of more than a very small number of family members or close friends. In any case, I told myself, making superficial remarks didn’t have the power to eclipse or insult the dead any more than missing them had the power to bring them back.

  Mrs. Janaszewski took my hand, gripping it in hers, and her skin was unexpectedly cool, given that it was a warm May afternoon. “It just breaks my heart about you and Dena,” she said. “She’s living back here, you know.”

  “Is she not involved with D’s anymore?”

  Mrs. Janaszewski said ruefully, “Clothing stores are a difficult business, Alice. Customers are fickle, and in Madison, there’s all the turnover with the students.”

  This surprised me, because D’s had always been buzzing whenever I’d been by. Then I realized that my most recent visit to the store had been over a decade earlier; though I occasionally went back to Madison—to have lunch with Rita Alwin, my old friend from Liess, or to see an exhibit at the Elvehjem Museum—I avoided State Street because it made me sad.

  “Dena’s a hostess over at the steak house in the new mall, but the real news is she has a steady beau,” Mrs. Janaszewski said. “You probably know him—Pete Imhof.” I suppose an expression of alarm appeared on my face, because Mrs. Janaszewski brought her hand to her mouth, saying, “Oh, Alice, he’s the brother—Oh, I’d forgotten all about—Forgive me.”

  “No, no, that was such a long time ago,” I said, and I might have then felt the same disloyalty toward Andrew that I’d been feeling toward my grandmother—I will minimize my grief for social pleasantries; this moment of small talk matters more than our history, your memory—except that I was so disturbed by Mrs. Janaszewski’s news. Dena was dating Pete? But Pete was awful! Dena was fun and cute and hardworking, and Pete was a dishonest layabout; he was a jerk. I even wondered, was she supporting him? How had they reconnected? Was it at all possible—for her sake, I hoped so—that he had changed since he’d swindled my mother? And then I thought, if Dena and Pete were dating, surely she’d have told him about my abortion. And my God, for him to find out all this time later that I’d been pregnant—would he be furious at me? Disgusted, or disappointed, or maybe just relieved I’d taken care of it? I said to Mrs. Janaszewski, “How long have they been together?”

  “Oh, close to a year now. She says, ‘Ma, quit asking when we’re getting married. If I have something to tell you, you’ll know.’ ”

  So if Pete were going to track me down, to confront me, wouldn’t he have done so months ago? Had Dena not told him, could it be that she didn’t remember? This seemed unlikely but not impossible. After all these years, Dena and Charlie were still the only people whom I’d told; confiding in Jadey felt too risky.

  I said, “That must be great for you, having Dena nearby.”

  “She just lives down on Colway Avenue,” Mrs. Janaszewski said. “Now, I may not know the full story of what happened between you girls, but if I know Dena, I’m sure she’d love to hear from you. I’ll give you her number, and she doesn’t go into work until five—why, I’ll bet she’s home right now.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m headed back to Milwaukee shortly.” I grimaced, as if I didn’t yearn to return to my usual life, my own house and bed and kitchen and habits. “Ella and Charlie have taken off already. But I’m glad to hear Dena is doing well.”

  “You and I both know she can be stubborn, but you girls were so close. I used to think, Alice is like the fourth sister, if only my own daughters were half as well behaved.”

  I was surprised that Dena hadn’t told her mother why our friendship had ended. But if she had, would Mrs. Janaszewski have treated me as warmly? I’d never felt that I was as much at fault as Dena had believed, but I also had never considered myself blameless; the flourishing of my relationship with Charlie at the expense of my friendship with Dena wasn’t a subject I chose to recall with any frequency. Now, knowing she was dating Pete Imhof, I tried not to wonder whether, apart from the abortion, they’d ever compared notes on me.

  I attempted to strike a regretful note as I said to Mrs. Janaszewski, “Maybe on another trip.”

  WHEN EVERYONE WAS gone, Lars and my mother and I sat in the living room, my mother sideways on the couch, her legs in black slacks extending in front of her and her feet, clad in sheer black stockings, on Lars’s lap, where he was absently rubbing them. I found the intimacy of the tableau both unsettling and sweet; certainly I had never felt Lars’s presence more reassuring than on this day, knowing that when I drove back to Milwaukee, he would remain.

  “I don’t mean to be unkind, but did you see the nacho casserole that Helen Martin brought?” my mother said. “
I’ve never heard of such a thing!” My mother was in a surprisingly upbeat mood; I suspect she was relieved that the guests had left.

  “No, it was quite tasty,” Lars said. “It had some kick to it, but not too much.”

  “It just sounds so funny.” My mother looked across the room, where I sat in a recliner that had been one of Lars’s few additions to the household when he moved in. “Did you try it, honey?” my mother asked.

  I shook my head. “But I had more than my share of Mrs. Noffke’s chocolate-chip cookies.” The phone rang—my mother had finally replaced her black rotary ones with cream-colored push-button versions—and as I walked to the kitchen to answer it, I said, “I think she put walnuts in them. Hello?”

  “You’re still there?” Charlie said.

  I looked at my watch. “It’s not even five-thirty.”