“William,” I said, “you’re waking up from a long sleep. You’re in the hospital. You had a little stroke. It’s me, Morgan. Can you hear me? Do you understand?”
I rushed out to the desk and told them, “William has regained consciousness.” A nurse followed me back to the glass room and took his vital signs. This exercise alone appeared to tire him, and he closed his eyes once more and seemed to sleep, though differently now, for his colour was brighter and there was a glimmer of life and intelligence in his face.
The nurse noticed my weeping. I hardly knew myself what to make of my tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wondering if she thought I didn’t welcome William’s revival.
“We put up these walls to protect ourselves against what we fear is going to happen,” she said, gently, “and then things change, events take us by surprise. We hardly know what to feel, do we? It’s confusing.”
“Yes.”
October 30
Dear girls,
…Since your father regained consciousness, he has slept less, and is able to sit up in bed, though they keep the tubes in him. Still, though I’ve encouraged him to talk, he remains silent. Finally I asked one of the nurses, William isn’t speaking. Is he ever going to talk again?
We don’t know at this point, she said, smiling at me kindly. Maybe he simply hasn’t anything to say to us yet. Try to be patient, Mrs. Hazzard. Silence can be a great healer.
I considered this for a while, but when I went into your father’s room in the afternoon, I felt very cold toward him, because possibly, I thought, this is deliberate and William has decided to stop talking to me, just as all those times in the past he hasn’t found me intelligent enough to converse with. I reflected to myself: Why, Morgan, do you sit here begging William to speak, because isn’t that just what you’ve done all your life? And I remembered that he’d once said to me, Silence is power, Morgan…
Dear girls,
…Yesterday I tried to read one of my books aloud to your father, thinking it would distract him from his solitude, but my voice came out so thin and wavery, like a fading radio signal, that it frightened me and I stopped. A good thing too, probably, because your father, looking up from a copy of The Fall of Rome or A History of the World or The Life and Times of Charlemagne, used to say to me, How can you waste your time on those shallow romances, Morgan? Don’t you see they’re just trash? Why can’t you pick up something that will feed your mind? Which surprised me, of course, because it always seemed to me he thought he had a monopoly on brains…
Dear girls,
…Do you ever think of the picture of the Garden of Gethsemane that hung all those years on our living-room wall? Your father never wanted it there. He said it was a portrait in cowardice: that Christ escaped to the garden the night of the Last Supper because he couldn’t face the mission he’d been given. And if there was one thing your father couldn’t stand it was weakness. When he swung his axe the night of the stroke, he struck Christ down before Judas had a chance to arrive in the garden and offer his betraying kiss. And now, like the soldier who lost his ear to Peter’s sword, your father seems to have lost his voice…
October 31
Dear girls,
…This afternoon, remembering that Hallowe’en had arrived, I brought out the brown sugar and the corn syrup to make a batch of fudge. By five o’clock it was dark. I sat down expectantly in your father’s chair with the plate of fudge balanced on my knee and listened to the hours ticking away. Eight o’clock arrived and at last I heard a knock. I hurried to the door and flung it open. A girl of twelve or so stood on the porch. I’ve waited all night for a child, I told her. She was wearing a short skirt, black ankle boots, a puffy silver jacket, a silver helmet. You’ve had an accident, I observed. Blood was running from her knee.
There was a porch without a rail, the girl told me. Two doors back. I didn’t notice. It was dark. They didn’t even have candy to give out. They’re renovating, they said.
Come in and let me help you.
I’m all right, she told me. It doesn’t hurt.
Let me at least wash the blood off.
I led her in and sat her down at the kitchen table. I’ll see if I have a Band-Aid, I said. I went to the bathroom, searched through the medicine cabinet and came back with a small box. She saw me struggling with the brittle wrapping.
Can I help? she asked. She had a soft mature voice. She took the Band-Aid from me, unwrapped it and stretched it over the scrape.
What sort of creature are you supposed to be? I asked, looking at her costume.
An intergalactic alien, she said. I hate Halloween, she added. It’s supposed to make you happy, but it never does.
Then why are you out? I asked.
My mother made me go. She says I have to get out and have fun.
Isn’t there someone you could have gone trick-or-treating with?
Only my sister. But she’s older. She wanted to be with her own friends. She’s very popular.
But you’re a pretty girl, I said, and intelligent-looking. Do you not have your own friends?
I’ve been sad all my life, said the girl. People don’t want to be with someone who’s sad.
Have bad things happened to you?
No. I was born this way. My mother says I got it from my father. It runs in his family.
You do look sad.
I’m best when I’m alone. But my mother says loners are lonely people.
My husband was a loner, I told her.
Where is he?
In the hospital — alone.
He must be happy, then.
Maybe he wasn’t a loner, I confided. Maybe he just didn’t like my company.
Either way, then, it’s good he got sick.
I don’t know, I said uncertainly.
She drew the plate of fudge toward her. You’re not supposed to give out stuff like this any more, she said, taking a piece. Didn’t you know? Everything has to be wrapped and sealed. Everything has to be professional. Homemade and unwrapped treats go straight into the garbage when we get home. Fudge. Popcorn balls. Candy apples. There are sick people out there. You could bite into a razor blade or a shard of glass. Rat poisoning.
She ate the fudge. This is good, she said.
It was a favourite recipe of my children, I told her…
November 1
Dear girls,
…Here in Canada the pale autumn sun is cooling day by day, like a dying planet…
Yesterday, on the way out of the hospital, I slipped into the chapel on the first floor. Alone, I knelt in one of the narrow blond pews, looking around at the stained glass windows and breathing in the smell of paraffin and chrysanthemums. At the front of the chapel stood a small organ, the sight reminding me of my soloist days. I opened my mouth, thinking I might sing a bit of Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” as an offering, a small prayer sent up, that William would soon recover his speech. But all that came out was a little yelp, like a trod-upon dog. Where, I wondered, my hand flying up to my throat, has my voice gone?
And suddenly I was a girl of ten once more, clattering down the stairs late on a Saturday night to sing for the company. The occasion was my uncle Harper’s birthday and my mother had decided to throw a party. We weren’t a party-giving family. It was an extravagance we couldn’t afford. But my mother had arranged a potluck supper and somehow scraped together enough money for sugar, candles, coffee. I’d been told to stay upstairs until summoned. From there, I smelled the aroma of food, heard the clattering of dishes and cutlery as my sisters at last cleared away the platters of ham and roast beef, the bowls emptied of potato salad, cucumber salad, coleslaw. Beneath the bedroom window, guffaws exploded. Parting the curtains, I saw a cluster of men in the lane below, passing a bottle of whisky around. I smelled a sweet herbaceous smoke and saw the tips of their lit cigars burning like red stars in the gathering dusk. Harper was out there. My father’s younger brother, a bachelor, he was fond of cutting up. He was a good-looker, a d
rinker, a tireless dancer, a champion teller of jokes.
Soon the fiddling commenced, the dancing began and the floor beneath my feet shook so violently that I thought the house would fall down. I listened with a raging hunger. My sisters, helping with the preparations late in the afternoon, had been allowed to nibble here and there, but in all the excitement, I hadn’t been given dinner. I felt certain a plate of food would await me in the kitchen after I’d sung. From downstairs came the thunder of heels on the wood floor, shouts and laughter, a distant mood of incomprehensible happiness.
Finally, one of my sisters came up to fetch me. After the darkness of my room, the house downstairs, ablaze with candles and lanterns, seemed like a bright ship sailing in the night. When he saw me coming down the stairs, Harper broke away from the crowd.
“Well, now,” he said, leaning down toward me, “what are you doing up so late?”
Alarmed by his flushed face, nauseated by his whisky breath, I drew away.
“I’m going to sing,” I told him shyly.
“Is that so? And what are you going to sing?”
“‘The Girl of the Golden West.’”
“Well, that’s a mighty big song for such a little girl.” He was the county gravedigger, fit, broad-shouldered, with bright blue eyes and a thick head of wavy hair, stiff that night with styling cream.
The house seemed grand and foreign, with the long lace-covered table and the candlelight flickering against the walls, and flowers, brought in from the garden, sweetening the air. In the parlour, all the furniture had been pushed back, the rug rolled up, the floor dusted with cornmeal. From the kitchen, where my sisters were toiling, came the sounds of plate-stacking, the jangle of cutlery, the rattle of cups and saucers. Though the windows had been thrown open to let in the spring breeze, the parlour was steamy with the heat of dancing. The neighbours, sudden strangers in their starched collars, their taffeta and chiffon skirts, grinned at me and backed away in a circle, their swollen bodies forming a soft wall. Yeasty with exercise, breathing heavily, the ladies mopped their throats. The men, jackets stripped off, suspenders stretched taut against their great bellies, faces glistening with sweat, reached up to loosen their ties, thrust their chins forward, freeing their thick necks.
My father, who neither smoked nor drank spirits, who was content to fade to the back of a throng, invisible, observing and listening, came forward shyly. Guiding me to the middle of the room, he nudged me gently onto an inverted soapbox. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of his tie, broad as his hand and bearing a peacock, its tail exploding like fireworks.
Wearing the only dress I owned, a hand-me-down in rough brown wool with the bodice gathered unflatteringly at the hip, I stepped up onto the soapbox. Though a question from an adult could leave me shy and stammering, when it came to singing before an audience, I never had trouble finding my voice. Now I opened my mouth and my song floated out. My voice was famous throughout the county and beyond. Every December, I was driven by buckboard from school to school to sing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” and “How Far is it to Bethlehem?” and “In the Bleak Mid-winter.”
By this time, my hunger had subsided and I longed only for a slice of dessert. During my song, I eyed the long table of glistening pies, tortes, gingerbread. Then, catching sight of my mother in the crowd, I was nearly felled by her radiance. She looked impossibly young, her skin flawless as an eggshell, the grey vanished from her hair, which formed a soft pile on her head. Her blue dress shone like the ocean, its hem scalloped like waves. I thought sadly: Why does she hide this beauty from us and bring it out only for strangers? Her cheeks pink from the elderberry wine, she ushered me off the soapbox when I’d finished singing and guided me toward the stairs.
“Go on up now,” she said with a firm nudge. No word of dessert as a reward for my performance. “Up to bed with you,” she said.
Alone in my bedroom, I removed my dress, shoes, leotards, and donned my nightgown. But, thinking of the tall cakes, of their tender flesh and shining skins, I couldn’t sleep. I crept out of bed and down to the turn in the stairs. There I saw my mother and Uncle Harper pressed together in the shadowy niche beneath the steps. They were kissing. He had pulled up my mother’s frothy skirts and thrust his hand between her legs, his arm moving with a strong, steady rhythm. Their bodies rocked together, my mother moaning softly. Then Harper dropped her skirt. His hand came away from between her thighs, glistening. When he slid the slippery fingers into my mother’s mouth, her lips closed hungrily on them.
That night, I dreamed I was stuffing cakes into my mouth, biting down into the soft, yielding flesh, the icing smearing over my lips, over my chin, my fingers buttery with it. I awoke hot with pleasure and discovered my hand working between my legs, my fingers busy among the velvety folds. They came away fragrant and slick. Horrified, I ran to the bathroom, where I tipped the ceramic pitcher until cold water gushed into the basin. Lathering my hands with glycerine soap, I scrubbed and scrubbed until I thought my skin would fall cleanly away from my fingers like a shell from a nutmeat.
Oh, I am choked with memories!
November 2
Dear girls,
…I’ve taken, in the evenings, to sitting in your father’s recliner. I’ve discovered it gives the best view of the street and of the television and the pictures on the walls, and now I realize that from this chair it would have been difficult for him to see me as I sat in my own, so that it’s possible I’ve been invisible to him all these years…
Dear girls,
…I’ve begun to take in the news on your father’s television, thinking it might help to sustain current events until he comes home. I’ve found it good company in the silent house and already I recognize the faces of the broadcasters. I’m learning the names of the world leaders and am able to keep the countries straight. But I do find them entertaining, these politicians. Their gravity, their narcissism, their deceitfulness amuse me…
November 3
Dear girls,
…You are the dupe of memory, William, I once told your father. Your mind has tricked you into forgetting that your prairie boyhood was cold and hungry and motherless…
November 4
When I arrived in William’s room this morning I was deeply shocked to find the monitors gone, the tubes and bags and apparatus removed, his bed empty and changed, the new sheets tucked in tight, smooth and barren as the windswept prairie and looking quite final. My legs, turning rubbery, wouldn’t support me any longer and I sank down on a chair, thinking: Now, at least, I’ve been given an answer. For don’t we all long for the comfort of absolutes? But then a nurse came in and said, “What’s wrong, Mrs. Hazzard? You look very pale. Goodness! It’s not what you think. Your husband has been transferred to Second East, the chronic care ward.”
“Are you sure he was ready?”
“He’s out of danger now. We need his bed for the next stroke victim.”
Down to Second East I went then, carrying only the thin cotton pyjamas in which William had been admitted and his false teeth, sealed in a brown manila envelope. But the further I travelled the more alarmed I grew. From the rooms along the hall came wails, shouts, cries of indignation and despair.
Mummy mummy mummy mummy mummy.
No no no no no.
Martha, come and get me. For God’s sake, Martha, I’ve wet myself again!
I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care.
I’m a little teapot short and stout. Just tip me over and pour me out. Fuck you fuck you fuck you.
On Second East there was a shocking level of noise and traffic, nurses rushing up and down the corridors with medications and instruments mysteriously wrapped in white towels, orderlies wheeling by with bins of soiled linens, with trolleys of rattling kidney pans, urinals, metal pitchers. The floors didn’t shine like mirrors as they had upstairs and there were windows here to be sure but they were grimy and didn’t let in the sun. I thought of the intensive care unit, a bell jar at
the heart of the hospital, where as soon as a fingerprint appeared on the glass, a custodian was called in and it was immediately rubbed off.
Here, the patients who weren’t lying in their own defecation or calling like children for their lost mothers drifted out of their rooms after lunch. The ward was like a cemetery with these patients floating about, so white of hair and skin that they seemed like ghosts. I looked at their watery colourless eyes, at the housecoats sliding off their thin shoulders. Shuffling along in disposable paper slippers, which rasped on the dull tile floors, they paused in front of a bulletin board. Posted there in large cut-out letters was the message: The day is: Wednesday. The season is: Autumn. The weather is: Sunny. The next holiday is: Christmas. The next meal is: Supper. They turned away unchanged by what they’d read, if in fact they could still read at all. From a speaker above our heads spilled a voice paging this doctor and that doctor, the same names repeated over and over, for it seemed the doctors never came.
When I found William’s room, I saw that they’d pulled the tubes out of his nose and arm and urethra, and that they were no longer pouring miraculous liquids into him or tracing the behaviour of his heart on a television monitor. He looked shockingly thin and strangely naked without his tubes and electrodes and plastic bags. He slept until the supper trolleys rattled onto the floor at four-thirty, filling the ward with the smells of canned gravy and bitter tea. William wouldn’t eat. Pushing his tray away, he turned to me and slurred, “You see…”
Strangely, these first words spoken since the stroke failed to fill me with joy. I realized that, while some days I’d longed to hear William speak, there were other times when I wasn’t so very anxious for him to open his mouth, because it seems that for so long he’s spoken for both of us.
The Wife Tree Page 6