The Love Wife

by Gish Jen

  — Lan.

  It came out as a near-whisper. Husky, urgent.

  With what clarity each of her dark hairs emanated from her pale scalp. How wonderfully they stood clear of one another, even as they fell together, a simple multitude of strong strands. And how they shone in the early light; I could not believe how unabashedly they shone.

  — You don’t have to—how to say?—whisper, she whispered back.

  — Of course not, I breathed.

  She laughed then—a lovely, rippling, low laugh with something private about it. She did not send it out into the open air, for anyone to hear. It was like her performance, addressed. You, she seemed to say. You. You.

  I performed too, of course, in a great many ways. And yet for no one in particular; Wendy was right. Where was my community, who was my audience? As for Blondie, did she not perform, still, after all these years, for her family?

  You, Lan seemed to say, You.

  — Lan.

  — Yes?

  — Stand up please.

  Up she sprang, sponge in hand.

  I stood then as well, so that I would not be eye level with her breasts. Her blue sweatshirt read LANDER’S ART SUPPLY in cracking red letters. A hand-me-up from Lizzy, apparently.

  — I want to talk to you about dinner, I said; my voice near normal and yet not normal.

  I observed the part in her hair—a side part—and, again, the many black hairs starting resolutely out of their roots. There were a few strands crossing the part, strands that belonged on the left side of her head but that had fallen, somehow, to the right. How hard not to take those strands and flip them the other way. How they begged to be set straight. She would have thought the same, I knew, if she could have seen them. I nobly succeeded in restraining my hand. But when she turned her head, I did blow gently at the errant hairs, stirring a few of the shorter strands into their proper place.

  She looked up, unsurprised. It was if she had believed all along that behind the front stage of our lives lay a back stage; as if she had been waiting to learn the way there.

  LAN / Finally I was inside the house. Everyone knows in America, girls have no morals. How can you expect the men to be better?

  CARNEGIE / — I want to talk to you, I said. About not setting a place for yourself at the table.

  She backed away a step. But only a step; she seemed poised to run away, yet able to consider how to act. She wrung her natural sponge into the recycled-plastic pail, deciding.

  Drop. Drop.

  Run, or stay?

  An inexplicable calm settled over me.

  — Forgive me, I said.

  — I’m sorry?

  — Forgive me for asking, I said. But if you would please set a place for yourself. At the table. At dinner.

  She did not say anything.

  Then I asked, surprising myself:—Will you be taking the TOEFL exam?

  If she was taken aback by the change of subject, she gave no indication. The Test of English as a Foreign Language? She shook her head no. It was as if she knew we were going to have this conversation; as if we both knew.

  — Because?

  — Because it is no use.

  — You are never going to college.

  She nodded.

  — But if you could go to college. Would you take it then?

  — Do you know how old I am?

  — Not that old.

  Silence.

  — Here in America, there are people who go back to school in their sixties, I said. Of course, I can’t promise anything. But who knows.

  — Would I get a degree?

  She shifted her weight; her rain boots squeaked on the wet floor. A surprisingly bright sound, as somehow befit their color.

  — I’d have to talk to Blondie, I said.

  LAN / How happy I was, and yet how unhappy. For even if I could get a degree—a degree!—it was too late. Women in China retired at fifty, fifty-five at the latest. Who would hire someone like me?

  So much shi qu ji hui—missed opportunity—in one life.

  CARNEGIE / She dropped her gaze to the pail. Reading her fate, it seemed, in the suds. She wrung her rough sponge.

  — Why am I here? she asked finally, her eyes full of tears.

  — Why do you help me?

  I explained about my mother’s will.

  She dug her gloved thumb into one of the craters of the sponge, then asked: — But why your mother want me to come here?

  I thought.

  — I guess she wanted the family to be more Chinese. Like her. She wanted us to be Wongs.

  We observed each other in the rippling water. Though we stood some distance apart, our reflections appeared to touch.

  She dropped the sponge in the water. Then slowly and deliberately, still gazing at the water, she began to slip off her gloves, one long finger at a time. I watched. The first glove she let fall into our reflection with a soft disturbing splash. It replaced our image with a floating severed hand, bobbing cheerfully alongside the sponge.

  The second glove she handed to me.

  That night, miracle of miracles, Lan set a place for herself. I saw her doing it and winked at her—as much, I suppose, to make myself feel that I knew what I had begun, as anything else. If in fact I had begun something.

  — She set a place for herself, marveled Blondie after dinner, loading the dishwasher.

  — How do you like that, I said.

  I helped clear the table.

  — Did you speak to her?

  — What makes you ask?

  — Well, she set a place for herself, and when I asked her why today, she said you told her to.

  — I did.

  I set a last pile of dishes on the counter with a clatter.

  — But you weren’t going to tell me you did, said Blondie. You were going to let me think she had decided to do it herself. Also you spoke to her when you knew I had already.

  Blondie’s tone was more tired than confrontational. No-nonsense, and yet somehow mild and good-natured.

  — And you asked me if I had spoken to her or not, when you knew that I had, I said. You were testing me.

  — You wanted to know if you could sway her. If you had some power over her I didn’t.

  She poured soap into the soap dispenser, then pushed the energy-saver button. The machine, ever reliable, came on.

  I beheld her then, my wife. Today she was wearing a wrap dress and, unusually, a turquoise necklace. An experiment, I guessed. An allowing, to see how it made her feel. How alert she was for revelation; Mama Wong would laugh.

  Forget about inner truth. You know what life is about? Life is about survive. That’s it.

  — I don’t know that that’s untrue, I said. But I don’t know that I wanted to sway her either. If I come to know, I will tell you.

  — Thank you, she said simply.

  — I wanted Lan to stop washing the floor, I said. I did know that. I’m sorry about the floor. She was using Ajax.

  — On the floor?

  — I threw it away.

  Blondie’s mouth tightened in the corners. The dishwasher churned.

  — I did notice the tiles looked dull, she said.

  — Maybe the floor can be waxed?

  I did not actually know if anyone used wax anymore; my last experience with floor wax had involved an appliance with two revolving heads and a distinctive smell, at a friend’s house, in first or second grade. Still I raised the idea, effective penitence in our household having a practical aspect.

  — Perhaps, she sighed. We have the goat to ruin our lawn, Lan to ruin our floor. That’s what it means to have these things at all. Where did that VCR come from?

  — I dug it out of the attic, I answered truthfully. — So Lan could watch movies. And that’s my old TV, from graduate school. I hooked it up for her.

  — How helpful, said Blondie.

  She seemed unmoved by my contrition.

  — Also I suggested we might think about college for her. So s
he could get a degree.

  — How interesting, said Blondie, that you would raise such a subject without consulting me.

  — I’m sorry. Let me at least put forth that it was wholly unpremeditated. If that constitutes a mitigating circumstance.

  — As my mother used to say, How extraordinary.

  She said what her mother used to say as her mother used to say it, crisply. With pointed restraint. But the moment after the delivery was all Blondie: grave and, though she would not have admitted it, shaken. She folded her arms in front of herself, playing with her necklace.

  — Scout’s honor, I said. It was spur of the moment.

  And with that I slid my hand across her waist, found the end of her wrap-dress tie, and pulled.

  — Carnegie! she said. Honestly!

  But she followed me into our bedroom, and herself took off the necklace, placing it carefully on a side table even as her back was arching, and her dress falling, her breathing plangent, like mine, with worried desire. It seemed then that the light was too bright—something. And was that Bailey? We checked to see; the bed, when we returned, was cold.

  But a moment later we were old married ease—bored then not bored, us and us and us.

  8

  Carnegie Takes a Day Off

  BLONDIE / Everyone was amazed back when I got pregnant at forty-three. On my own, the doctors said.

  CARNEGIE / Though I, excuse me, begged to differ.

  BLONDIE / No one dared hope that the bip bip bip on the ultrasound would turn into eyes and ears and nose; I refused to buy maternity clothes. For what were the chances of my going to term? At my age. With my history. Still I grew larger and larger—amazing myself. Was this self always hidden in my other self? And were there other selves like this one, secreted within plain view? How accidental my old self began to feel, how partial. How ignorant.

  In Art, Wendy made a clay statue of me with my arms akimbo, like chicken wings; I laughed. For that was me all right, my hands glued to my lower back by the end, for balance. Lizzy dubbed me Mount Mama. Led by Carnegie, their choirmaster, they sang me lullabies at bedtime. Lullaby, and good night—so your figure’s a fright / May you lay down and rest / We still lo-ve you the best . . . Every night there were different lyrics. You people! I said usually. Happy to be able to laugh, if not to sleep—there being no sleeping position, no pillow configuration that worked. As for the daytime: — Does anyone need to use the bathroom before we go? Wendy would ask before we got into the car. And Lizzy would join in: — It could be a ways before the first rest stop.

  On hot days I thought nothing of parking myself in front of an air conditioner. And how I sat! Legs apart, like a benched basketball player.

  CARNEGIE / Only what jersey would fit her? And what sort of player could this be? With the basketball stuck to her lap.

  As per the advice of others (fair-haired women being problem-prone), she was trying to toughen her nipples for breastfeeding, which mostly involved roughing herself up with sisal bath sponges and oatmeal scrubs. I volunteered to help, of course; but how disconcerting when my nibbling brought leakage. And to be slapped away, that was strange too. To be barred from the dairy bar.

  BLONDIE / Month nine came and went.

  CARNEGIE / A lucky thing, as I was hugely pregnant at work as well. That baby being release one of the document-management server and, like Blondie’s baby, overdue. Every day marketing screamed and screamed, as if we development people didn’t realize how important it was to stay in synch. As if we didn’t want to see the product launched too.

  Truly: it was twins.

  BLONDIE / Month ten brought ultrasounds, stress tests, talk of inducing. Then suddenly it was all happening—the breathing, the talk of a C-section—my age, my age—but in the end an episiotomy, crowning—I felt it with my hand, a head emerging—hair!

  CARNEGIE / A boy!

  — Fresh from the factory, said the OB, holding him up for view.

  How unreasonably happy I was to have, in the family, another pecker.

  BLONDIE / A boy. We were happy enough to hear it. But how that fact paled beside the not-there, then there-ness of him! This strange, wailing creature, waxy bloody goldeny, to cuddle briefly—look, how already nuzzling! How already trying to nurse!

  CARNEGIE / But first: time to wash up. How in touch with his outrage, our little man! That whole-body wail. And such emotive toes—splayed out like the spokes of a wheel I’d say, except that they were hardly spoke-like. Rather scrawny through the midsection and bulb-like at their ends, like the toes of tree frogs. Had they extruded something sticky, I would not have been altogether surprised.

  And of course, those toes were but one part of a package with deeper adhesive qualities. You didn’t have to be a hormone-drunk woman to feel immediately, irremediably bonded, as he was returned to us. To the toes, the ankles, the knees of this being. To his nostrils, to his eyelashes, to his fingernails. To his pecker.

  BLONDIE / Now, the afterbirth.

  — Fresh from the factory, said the OB again.

  Then she failed to say more. If she was smiling, you couldn’t tell because of her surgical mask. And of course her hair was hidden too, in that blue shower cap doctors wear.

  She failed to say congratulations, or that he was beautiful.

  Fresh from the factory.

  My heart did still bloom, as I cradled for keeps now our child—how he was looking about! Looking and looking at everything. After such a big pregnancy, such a surprisingly small human.

  — Where are you? You’re in the world, I told him. Welcome. Welcome.

  I held my hand over his eyes, shielding him from the too bright light. And sure enough, he liked that—opened his eyes wider.

  Carnegie extended the visor with his hands.

  — Hello there, he whispered. I am your captain. This is planet Earth.

  Yet in the midst of all this happy welcoming, I noticed it. The silence. Of the doctor, and of the nurses, too. I would not have thought to look up except for their silence.

  But I did. And so it was that I saw how they were focused, oddly, on Carnegie.

  CARNEGIE / Between their masks and bouffant caps, they were bug-eyed, like some exotic species of crab. Reading me even as I read their guesses, the upshot of which was that I was not necessarily Bailey’s father. Could I, right there, in their very own delivery room, before their eyes, be experiencing a largish doubt? Indeed they appeared to be hoping, poor bored souls, for a moment of soap opera. How they would have loved for me to denounce my wife, right there. Slut! Slapping her as she cried and pleaded, thrusting her innocent babe before her.

  I was sorry to disappoint those nosy professionals. Stuck as they were with the mere miracle of life.

  At the same time: the ever-inventive workings of biology!

  — I’m not going to even ask, I whispered to Blondie.

  — Ask what?

  All this because my son—and I did believe that I had begat him with my own one-two—was not just on the fair side. He was not one of those brownish-haired, somewhere-in-between-y kids you see around everywhere these days. This child—my child—was blond blond. He was bright, brassy King-Midas-couldn’t-have-made-him-blonder blond.

  And his eyes: Virgin Mary blue.

  — Ask what? said Blondie; though later she too admitted surprise.

  It was good to have witnessed the delivery. Had this been the fifties, I might well have stumbled off to a lawyer, mumbling something something Switched at Birth!

  Instead we developed, Blondie and I, a marital dislike of the obstetrician. She was not even our own doctor, but a member of an OB group whose doctors cross-covered. We decried this practice at dinner parties. And there, look, on his bottom, at the top of his sweet bum. Was that not a Mongolian spot? A faint bluish bruise-ish indelible shadow, proof of some Asian connection.

  Or so people said on the Internet, in a chat room I found on the subject.

  BLONDIE / The books say men have more trouble than
women when it comes to bonding with children who don’t look like them. But Carnegie did fine. He was not relieved that Bailey eventually turned brown-eyed like him. Or dismayed that Bailey stayed fair-haired during the year, turning even blonder in the summer. Carnegie was not chagrined that Bailey had pale skin, like mine, though seal sleek, like Carnegie’s.

  People at first glance thought Bailey white. They asked Carnegie if Bailey was his.

  CARNEGIE / — No, I would say, he’s a rental.

  BLONDIE / Of course, those kinds of questions only went on up to a certain age. I knew because I used to get the same question, strolling the girls around—were they mine and so on.

  CARNEGIE / That went with, Oh look, how cute! Don’t they look like dolls? And: Oh! That straight black hair!

  No wonder Lizzy dyed hers.

  BLONDIE / Still Carnegie thought Bailey looked like him. He pointed out Bailey’s eyes. Didn’t they have a telltale tilt?

  CARNEGIE / And his nose. Not as flat as some, but still: didn’t he look as if he’d walked into a door?

  BLONDIE / Actually our baby’s name was Ellison. Ellison Bailey Wong. But we called him Bailey, after my family, and that was perfectly all right. More than all right, really. Here in this airiest of spaces I can confess that I loved it more than I would have said that my genes were not swallowed up by Carnegie’s. I had assumed that they would be, somehow—that dark would trump fair. A reasonable assumption, given what I knew from paint boxes and markers.

  But that was wrong—and I was surprised what it meant to me, not to find my blood, my side, myself drowned out.

  Some would say that the point of raising children is of course self-replication. How hopelessly idealistic, to imagine love and values might count more than genes! But truly, I did. I was honestly chagrined to find in this child anything like a new order of experience.

  And yet; and yet. To have held his soft skull as it emerged from my body; to have felt him tugging at my breast; to have ached for him in turn, sleeping when he slept. What a unit we were! I had never known anything like it.