Wife 22

by Melanie Gideon

  That night Peter crawls into bed with me.

  “Poor Mom,” he says, wrapping his arms around me. “You had a hard day. Watching your children begging on the streets.”

  “Aren’t you too old for snuggling?” I say, pushing him away, wanting to punish him a little.

  “Never,” he says, snuggling in closer.

  “How much do you weigh?”

  “A hundred pounds.”

  “How tall are you?”

  “Five one.”

  “You may snuggle for another five pounds or another inch, whichever comes first.”

  “Why only five pounds and an inch?”

  “Because after that it will be unseemly.”

  Peter is quiet for a moment. “Oh,” he says softly, his hand patting my arm the exact same way he used to when he was a toddler.

  He was so tuned into me when he was younger; it was exhausting. If any sort of a worried look broke over my face he’d run over. It’s okay, Mama. It’s okay, he would say solemnly. Would you like a song?

  “I’ll miss it, too, sweetheart,” I say. “But it will be time.”

  “Can we still watch movies together on the couch?”

  “Of course. I’ve got our next one lined up. The Omen. You’re going to love the part at the zoo where all the animals go wild.”

  We lie quietly together for a while.

  Something is nearly over. I put my hand over my heart as if I can keep its contents from spilling out.

  72

  Lucy Pevensie added her profile picture

  Nice dress, Wife 22.

  You think so? I’m wearing it for my coronation. The rumor floating around here is that soon I’m to be crowned Queen Lucy the Valiant.

  Will I be invited to your coronation?

  That depends.

  On what?

  Do you have the proper coronation attire? A velvet cape, preferably royal blue?

  I have a velvet cape, but it’s puce. Will that do?

  I suppose. My best friend wants me to be her maid of honor.

  Ah-so this is a maid of honor dress.

  Well, this is what she’d like me to wear. Well, not exactly this dress, but something similar.

  Is it possible you’re exaggerating a bit?

  Has it ever occurred to you that marriage is a sort of Catch-22? The very things that you first found so attractive in your spouse-his darkness, his brooding, his lack of communication, his silence-those things that you found so charming in the beginning are the very things that twenty years later drive you mad?

  I’ve heard similar sentiments from other subjects.

  Have you ever felt this way?

  I can’t divulge that information.

  Please. Divulge something, Researcher 101. Anything.

  I can’t stop thinking about you, Wife 22.

  73

  77. A dictatorship where the dictator changes every day. Not sure if democracy is possible.

  78. Well, many people here on earth in the twenty-first century believe in the concept of the one true love, and when they believe in the one true love this often leads to marriage. It may seem to you like a silly institution. Your species might be so advanced you have different partners for different stages of your life: first crush, marriage, breeding, child-raising, empty nest, and slow, but hopefully not painful, death. If that’s the case, maybe the one true love doesn’t enter into it-but I doubt it. You probably just call it something else.

  79. It seems to me that everyone takes their turn: behind the curtain managing props, being a bit player, then in the chorus, then center stage, then, at last, all of us end up in the audience, watching, one of the faceless appreciators in the dark.

  80. Days and weeks and months of glances, of unrequited lust.

  81. Living on the top of a mountain in a house with a quilt on the bed and fresh flowers on the table every day. I would wear long white lace dresses and Stevie Nicks-style boots. He would play the guitar. We would have a garden, a dog, and four lovely kids who built towers out of blocks on the floor while I made chicken in a pot.

  82. You need it, like air.

  83. Kids. Companionship. Can’t imagine life without them.

  84. Can imagine life without them.

  85. You know the answer to that.

  86. Yes.

  87. Of course!

  88. In some ways, yes. Other ways, no.

  89. Cheat. Lie. Forget about me.

  90. Dear William,

  Do you remember that time we went camping in the White Mountains? We did most of the hike the first day. Our plan was to spend the night and then get up early and climb to the top of Tuckerman Ravine. But you drank too much and the next morning you had a killer hangover, the kind of hangover one can only sleep off. So you crawled back inside your sleeping bag and I went up Tuckerman without you.

  You didn’t wake until late afternoon. You looked at your watch and knew immediately something was very wrong; it was a hike that should have taken me two hours, but I had been gone close to six and you had a pretty good idea why-I had gone off trail. I was always going off trail. You, on the other hand always stayed on the trail, but without you there walking beside me, I drifted, and became helplessly lost.

  Now, this was a long time ago. Before AOL. Before cellphones. We were still years away from searching and clicking and browsing and friending. So you came after me the old-fashioned way. You rang your bear bell, you called out my name, and you ran. And at dusk, when you finally found me, sobbing at the base of a pine tree, you made me a promise I’ll never forget. No matter where I went, no matter how far I drifted, no matter how long I was gone, you would come after me and bring me home. It was the most romantic thing a man had ever said to me. Which makes it all the more difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that twenty years later we’ve drifted from one another again. Profligate drifting. Senseless drifting. As if we had all the daylight left in the world to make it to the top of Tuckerman.

  If this sounds like a goodbye letter, I’m sorry. I’m not sure it’s goodbye. It’s more of a warning. You should probably look at your watch. You should probably say to yourself, Alice has been gone a very long time. You should probably come and find me. AB

  74

  I wake to the clatter of aluminum tent poles skittering over the hardwood floor.

  “Where the hell is your mother?” I hear William shout from downstairs.

  I just want to stay in bed. However, thanks to me, sleep will have to be shelved because we’re going camping in the Sierras. I made the reservation a few months ago. It sounded so idyllic then: sleeping under the stars surrounded by sugar pines and firs-a little family bonding. Caroline and Jampo will have the house to themselves for a few days.

  “Goddammit!” William shouts. “Is there anybody here capable of packing a tent properly?”

  I climb out of bed. Not nearly so idyllic a vision now.

  An hour later we are on the road and our family bonding looks like this: William listening to the latest John le Carré novel on his iPhone (which, by the way, is exactly what I’m listening to on the car’s CD player, but William says he’s unable to concentrate unless he’s read to privately), Peter playing Angry Birds on his phone, every so often shouting bananas and dang it, and Zoe furiously texting-God knows to whom. It’s like this for two and a half hours until we begin driving over the pass and cell reception cuts out. Then it’s like they’ve awoken from a dream.

  “Whoa, trees,” says Peter.

  “Is that where those people ate those people?” asks Zoe, peering down at the lake.

  “You mean the Donner Party,” says William.

  “Breast or thigh, Zoe?” asks Peter.

  “Hil-ar-ious, Pedro. How long is this camping trip anyway?” asks Zoe.

  “Our reservation is for three nights,” I say. “And it’s not like it’s work. It’s car camping. Nobody has to do anything. We’re here to have fun and relax.”

  “Yes, this morning was ex
tremely relaxing, Alice,” says William, staring out the window. He’s as unenthusiastic as the children.

  “Does this mean there’ll be no cell service?” asks Zoe.

  “Nah, we’re just in a dead zone. Dad said there’d be Wi-Fi at the campground,” says Peter.

  “Uh-he’s wrong, sorry. There’s no Wi-Fi,” I tell them.

  I just found out this fact myself yesterday when I confirmed our reservation. Then I went into my bedroom and had a nice, private panic attack at the thought of being incommunicado with Researcher 101 for seventy-two hours. Now I’m resigned to it.

  Gasps issue forth from the backseat.

  “Alice, you didn’t tell me that,” says William.

  “No, I didn’t tell any of you that because if I did, you wouldn’t have come.”

  “I can’t believe you are going to unplug,” says Zoe to me.

  “Well, believe it,” I say. I reach over William and pop my cellphone into the glove box. “Hand your phones over, kiddos. You, too, William.”

  “What if there’s an emergency?” says William.

  “I brought a first-aid kit.”

  “An emergency of a different sort,” he says.

  “Like what?”

  “Like having to get in touch with somebody,” he says.

  “That’s the whole point. To get in touch with each other,” I say. “IRL.”

  “IRL?” asks William.

  “In real life,” I say.

  “It really disgusts me that you know that acronym,” says Zoe.

  Fifteen minutes later, apparently incapable of doing anything-daydreaming, conversing, or having one original thought without the aid of their devices-the kids are asleep in the backseat. They stay asleep until we roll into the campground.

  “Now what?” says Peter, after we finish setting up the campsite.

  “Now what? This is what,” I say, spreading my arms wide. “Getting away from it all. The woods, the trees, the river.”

  “The bears,” says Zoe. “I have my period. I’m staying in my tent. Blood is like catnip to them.”

  “Disgusting,” says Peter.

  “That’s an old wives’ tale,” says William.

  “No, it’s not. They can smell it miles off,” says Zoe.

  “I’m going to throw up now,” says Peter.

  “Let’s play cards,” I say.

  Zoe holds up a finger. “Too windy.”

  “Charades,” I suggest.

  “What? No! It’s not dark yet. People will be able to see us,” she says.

  “Fine. How about we go find some firewood?” I ask.

  “You look mad, Mom,” says Peter.

  “I’m not mad, I’m thinking.”

  “It’s strange how your thinking face looks like your mad face,” says Peter.

  “I’m going to take a nap,” says Zoe.

  “Me, too,” says Peter. “All this nature makes me sleepy.”

  “I’m a little tired, too,” says William.

  “Do what you want. I’m going down to the river,” I say.

  “Take a compass,” says William.

  “It’s fifty feet from here,” I say.

  “Where?” asks Peter.

  “Through the trees. There. See? Where all those people are swimming.”

  “That’s a river? It looks like a stream,” says Zoe.

  “Tucker, you are not allowed to do dead man’s float in the water!” we hear a woman scream.

  “Why not?” a boy yells back.

  “Because people will think you’re dead!” the woman screams back.

  “We drove all this way so you could swim in a stream with hundreds of other people? We could have just gone to the town pool,” says Peter.

  “You people are pathetic,” I huff, stomping off.

  “When are you coming back, Alice?” William calls after me.

  “Never!” I shout.

  Two hours later, sunburned and happy, I pick up my shoes and head back. I’m exhausted, but it’s a good exhausted, the kind that comes from submersing yourself in a glacial river on a July afternoon. I walk slowly, not wanting to break the spell. Occasionally I have this sort of out-of-body experience where I feel all my previous incarnations simultaneously: the ten-year-old, the twenty-year-old, the thirty-year-old, and the forty-something-year-old-they’re all breathing and looking out of my eyes at the same time. The pine needle path crunches under my bare feet. The smell of hamburgers grilling makes my stomach growl. I hear the faint sounds of a radio-Todd Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me”?

  It feels strange not to have my phone with me. It feels even stranger not to be on constant alert, waiting for my next hit: an email or post from Researcher 101. What I feel instead is emptiness. Not a yearning emptiness, but a lovely, blissed-out emptiness that I know will be obliterated the moment I set foot in our campsite.

  But that’s not what happens. Instead I find my family sitting around the picnic table, talking. TALKING. Without a device, or a game, or even a book in sight.

  “Mama,” cries Peter. “Are you okay?”

  He hasn’t called me Mama in at least a year, maybe two.

  “You went swimming,” said William, noting my wet hair. “In your shorts?”

  “Without me?” says Zoe.

  “I didn’t think you’d want to go. You spent half an hour blow-drying your hair this morning.”

  “If you had asked I would have gone,” Zoe sniffs.

  “We can swim again after dinner. It will still be light.”

  “Let’s go for a hike,” says Peter.

  “Now?” I say. “I was thinking I’d take a little nap.”

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” says William.

  “You have?”

  The three of them exchange looks.

  “Fine. Great. Let me change and we’ll go.”

  “We’re not making enough noise,” says Zoe. “Bears only attack when they’re surprised. Or smell you. Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo, bear!”

  We’ve been hiking for over forty-five minutes. Forty-five mosquito-slapping, horse-fly-buzzing, children-whining, no-breeze-to-be-found-anywhere minutes.

  “I thought this was a loop. Shouldn’t we be back already?” says Peter. “And why didn’t anybody bring a water bottle? Who goes hiking without a water bottle?”

  “Run up the trail, Pedro,” I say. “Scout ahead. This is all looking very familiar to me. I’m sure we’re almost at the end. In fact, I think I hear the river.”

  This is a lie. I don’t hear anything but droning insects.

  Peter takes off and William yells after him, “Not too far ahead! I want you to stay in singing range. That’s the rule.”

  “I beg you. Please don’t do this to me,” says Zoe.

  “Right, right, turn off the lights, we’re gonna lose our minds tonight,” we hear Peter crooning.

  Zoe rolls her eyes.

  “It’s better than woo-hoo, bear,” I tell her.

  “Do you really think we’re almost there?” asks William.

  “Party crasher, penny snatcher.”

  “Oh, my God. Is penny snatcher a you-know-what?” I ask.

  “What?” says William.

  “You know. Something you put pennies in? A bank. A slot. A euphemism for-”

  He looks at me perplexed.

  “A purse?” I whisper.

  “Oh my God, mother, a vagina, just say it,” says Zoe. “And it’s panty snatcher, not penny snatcher.”

  “Call me up if you a gangsta-” Peter’s voice suddenly breaks off.

  We walk for another couple of minutes.

  “Is there anything more ridiculous than a twelve-year-old white boy using the word ‘gangsta’?” asks Zoe.

  “Zoe, shush!”

  “What?”

  We all stop and listen.

  “I don’t hear anything,” says Zoe.

  “Exactly,” I say.

  William cups his hands to his mouth and yells, “We asked you to sing!”

 
; Silence.

  “Peter!”

  Nothing.

  William tears down the path, Zoe and me on his heels. We round the corner and find Peter frozen in place, standing not more than five feet away from a mule deer. Now, this is not a run-of-the-mill mule deer. It’s an enormous trophy buck, well over two hundred pounds, antlers as long as baguettes, and he and Peter seem to be engaged in some sort of staring contest.

  “Back away slowly,” whispers William to Peter.

  “Do mule deer charge?” I whisper to William.

  “Slowly,” repeats William.

  The buck snorts and takes a few steps toward Peter and I let out a little gasp. Peter looks like he’s under a spell: he has a half-smile on his face. Suddenly I understand what I’m witnessing. It’s a rite of passage. The kind Peter’s gone through hundreds of times in his video games, battling otherworldly creature of all sorts, ogres and sorcerers and woolly mammoths, but rarely does a twenty-first-century boy have such an opportunity in real life-to have actual physical contact with the wild thing; to lock eyes with it. Peter extends his hand as if to touch the buck’s antlers, and his sudden movement seems to wake the buck up and it darts away into the brush.

  “That was unbelievable,” says Peter, turning to us, his eyes gleaming. “Did you see him looking at me?”

  “You weren’t scared?” breathes Zoe.

  “He smelled like grass,” Peter says. “Like rocks.”

  William looks at me and shakes his head in wonder.

  On the way back, we hike through the woods single-file. Peter leads the way, then Zoe, then me, then William bringing up the rear. Occasionally the setting sun pierces through the trees-magenta, then bright orange. I tip my face up to receive the warmth. The light feels like a benediction.

  William reaches for my hand.

  75

  I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of Zoe screaming. William and I bolt up and look at each other.

  “It is an old wives’ tale,” he says, “isn’t it?”