Mating for Life

by Marissa Stapley

  In reality, it had been three years.

  Johnny had been tending the bar that night, mixing them margaritas, or cosmopolitans, or something predictable for a group of women of a certain age, which they were. He’d had a bartender’s guide behind the bar and he’d been magnanimous, happy to serve them whatever they wanted even though they probably all seemed like a bunch of cackling hens to him. Now she knew it was because of the money he was making off of them, but she had thought at the time that perhaps he actually enjoyed his job, enjoyed serving people, and also, just maybe, that he enjoyed being around her, was interested even, in her. When she looked at him, the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up over arms that bore a tan that obviously reached the deepest layer of his dermis, the hair golden on top of his skin, she had very badly not wanted him to think she was a cackling hen. She had very badly, when she looked at him, wanted to go somewhere and kiss him. And this was not something that measured and shy Myra was prone to feel or be tempted to do.

  “Who is he?” she’d asked her friend Wendy, the one whose family owned the cottage the group of women were staying at for the weekend.

  “Johnny Hicks. Nice name, huh? Kind of appropriate, although he is rather delicious in a guy-from-the-sticks way. Very blue-collar. Rumor has it there’s a different woman with him here every few summers. He gets most of them pregnant, they all have boys, and then they all leave.”

  Myra had leaned in, fascinated. “Are you serious? Come on. That can’t really be true.”

  “For real. I don’t even know how many sons he has, but there are lots of them and they all look the same. So do the women: pretty and blond.”

  “How many women? How many sons?”

  “I told you, no idea. But I think the first woman had two kids before she left.”

  “But why would they all leave?”

  “Maybe because they’re bored to tears.”

  Myra looked at Johnny and couldn’t imagine being bored. She was staring at him so hard she barely heard Wendy say, “The winters here are pretty deadly. Depressing. Nothing to do but cross-country ski and listen to the ice crack. And let’s face it, there’s only so much sex you can have, even with a guy like that.”

  Myra proceeded to drink several more cocktails, and later, out on the deck, she kissed Johnny Hicks with her hands clasped up and around the back of his neck. She went back inside after and was convinced none of her friends had ­noticed—but of course they all had, and were talking behind her back with a cruelness borne of jealousy. (Isn’t she still technically married? What is she thinking?) Later, she and Johnny snuck outside and kissed again and she ran her hands down his chest, over the softness of his shirt, and Wendy walked outside with two of the other women and they cleared their throats.

  Eventually the women all left and Myra and Johnny went to his place. The boys were sleeping, so he said she needed to be quiet. She whispered things in his ear like, “What did you want to be when you grew up?” and he said things like, “What I am right now,” and she thought that meant something great about him, like that he was, unlike anyone else she knew, exactly who he was. Really what it had meant was that Johnny took everything literally.

  She had wanted Johnny with a hunger that had never truly been sated—and at least they still had that. Their bodies fit together in a way that she hadn’t imagined possible but that he was clearly used to. He hadn’t said to her, the way she had to him, This is the best I’ve ever had, or All I can think about is making love to you. Instead, in response, he had smiled and said something like, “Yep, it is pretty good, isn’t it?” If there was one thing Johnny knew, it was his way around a woman’s body. A woman’s mind, though: that was another story. Especially a woman like Myra, it would turn out. “The others weren’t like you,” he had said to her once. She hadn’t been sure if this was a compliment, but it did make her feel slightly comforted, and also superior and safe from being filed in the same folder as these other women. Pretty, blond, unintelligent, gone.

  She had decided to take the fact that he considered her different from the others as a sign that perhaps he was interested in having her encourage him toward self-improvement. So she began: “Do you ever want to go back to school?” “Nope. I’m forty-four. That would be stupid.” He had gotten up from the table, leaving his supper unfinished. And that was that. She had tried to ask again and he had snapped at her to drop it. Later, she would learn he barely had a grade ten education, but also that there were reasons for this.

  She had never told Johnny what it was that she’d wanted. She had never admitted to him that when her former friend Wendy had said that women would come to live with Johnny and end up pregnant she had thought, with the misdirected clarity only a drunk person can have, that perhaps she had found her answer. That night, through the distortion of too many cosmopolitans or margaritas or whatever they were, she had seen a way to leave it all behind: the disappointment of the city, the starkness of the fertility clinics, the embarrassment, yes, embarrassment she had felt when the doctors had said there wasn’t a problem with her, per se, and nor was there a problem with Colin, but that they couldn’t really understand why she wasn’t getting pregnant. In Johnny and the marina and the boys she had seen a way to avoid witnessing the inevitable dissolution of her marriage to Colin, too. (Oh, and technically, they were still married. Technically, they had been in the midst of a trial separation when she had, as he put it, run off to the woods. But it was such a tepid dissolution that neither of them had bothered to do anything about it. Three years, and she hadn’t heard from him. She supposed she had always figured that as soon as she got pregnant, she’d get in touch about a divorce. And that in the meantime, if he ever met someone or decided he needed closure, he’d do the same. But nothing had happened in either direction. And she had not told Johnny about Colin at all, at first because she had been nervous about mentioning it and later because she had realized how pointless it was. It wouldn’t matter to Johnny. He was never going to ask her to marry him anyway, so her being technically still married to someone else was of little consequence.)

  Once, Myra had said to Johnny, “We should go to the city.” It was fall, not yet winter, and the leaves on the trees in their yellows, reds, and golds made her think of fresh starts even though they weren’t really, even though what the changing of the leaves really signified was a last-ditch attempt at being something before the ultimate descent into nothing.

  “Like, for a weekend?”

  “No. We should just go. We should sell this place and go. You’re a natural restaurateur, and I could probably find you a backer. We could open up a restaurant and live in my house and . . .”

  He looked at her strangely and then he said, “We should sell this place?”

  “Well, I mean, I meant . . . I know it’s yours, and—”

  “And you have your house. If you want to go back to the city, you can. But I’m not going anywhere.” And he’d shaken his head like she was crazy and walked toward the main house, his work boots undone, his laces dragging. She wondered as she always did how it was possible he never stumbled. (“Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to lace up your boots?” she had once asked him. “My mother is dead,” he had said, and she’d wanted to ask but knew he didn’t want her to, so she didn’t.) I should really go, she’d said to herself after that conversation. He’s right. I have my house. I should go.

  But although she had always believed this urge for going would eventually overtake her, she had believed it would happen in winter—probably this winter, when she finally accepted and mourned her barrenness and couldn’t take it anymore. And so it came as a surprise to her that the way this red-haired woman left would make her think about leaving, even in summer. She had watched those taillights and thought, I could do that, too. I could get in a car and just go. I don’t have to feel jealous of this woman for being able to leave. No one and nothing is forcing me to stay here. Would the
boys be upset? Maybe Jesse would. Was that enough of a reason to stay?

  • • •

  Myra walked toward the store. Johnny was back and he stood in the doorway, apparently waiting for her, his smile slow and easy. “Walt Anderson brought his boat in to get the engine looked at and now he’s heading back to the city and needs us to take it back out to his place on the southwest side of the island. But I’ve got Amos coming in to look at the stove any minute and the boys are all busy, except Jess. So can you go out there with him? You can drive our boat and he can drive Walt’s, and then you can come back together.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m just going to grab a water.”

  As she squeezed past him through the door he slapped her on the seat of her jeans. “You’re looking fine today, you know,” he said, and it felt like there were pop rocks, the kind they sold in the store in little packets, fizzing inside her chest, hopeful effervescence, her body and mind responding with desire. The call of Johnny’s body to hers was a difficult thing to ignore. And maybe this time it would happen. Maybe, just maybe, when she was on the precipice of giving up, it would happen. She certainly wouldn’t be the only thirty-seven-year-old in the world to get pregnant. So she winked at him. “Be sure to make some time for me later,” she said, and he kissed her quickly and said, “You betcha, babe,” and walked up the hill toward the restaurant while she stood in the doorframe where he had just been, now watching him, the water forgotten. What if it happened? What if I did get pregnant? Would I stay if I had his baby? Would I really want to raise a baby here?

  Myra didn’t know the answer to that. But one thing she did know: she’d never leave her baby here with him. She would be different from the other women in that way, too: if she left, she’d take her baby with her.

  Maybe you don’t love him as much as you think you do.

  • • •

  On the way back to the marina after returning Walt’s boat, the water was rough and Jesse drove slowly. This pleased Myra. She was certain that if she had not been there he would have been far more reckless, because he was a teenage boy and that’s what teenage boys did. (Jesse even had a battle scar to prove his recklessness, on his upper lip, from when one of the older boys—Myra couldn’t remember who because it happened before her time—had gotten him with a fishing hook. It had been an accident, of course. The story was that Jesse had been walking around where he shouldn’t have been. That was how things went in the Hicks household: Don’t be stupid and you won’t get hurt. And yet people did still get hurt.)

  Now Jesse slowed the boat and directed it into the channel where the water was calmer but where he had to slow down even further.

  “Your father wanted you back at the restaurant,” Myra said quietly, wondering why she’d said that. She was tired. She didn’t want to go back to the restaurant right away. Maybe he didn’t, either.

  He drove the boat in silence, looking over at her every once in a while. She eventually got the impression that he had something to say to her. This alarmed her slightly, mostly because she wasn’t sure how to encourage him to say whatever it was he needed to say. As always, when faced with any sort of situation with the boys, it amazed her how little she knew. Was she supposed to talk to him, to try to draw him out, or to stay silent and wait for him to speak? She wished suddenly that she was his mother. Then she’d know exactly what to do.

  She opened her mouth, then closed it, then sat and thought, selecting and tossing aside different conversation openers until they were out of the channel and he was starting to speed the boat up again.

  “Jesse . . . wait. Slow down.” He did. “Are you okay?” she finally asked. It was as good a start as any, she supposed.

  He glanced at her sideways again. “Sure. Yeah. Well. Um. I’m good, actually. Because, I, uh . . .” He cut the engine. “Well, here’s the thing: I got into school.”

  “Really? As in—”

  “Yeah, as in university. University of Toronto. Into the forest biomaterials science program we talked about. Late admission, so, uh, well, yeah, I didn’t think it was going to happen.”

  Neither had Myra. She’d known exactly when he should have heard back from the schools and had been torn about whether to mention it to him or not, to offer her support and empathy, to encourage him to try again the following year, or to apply to a community college, or to take some enrichment classes.

  “This is amazing! I didn’t—I didn’t want to bother you about it, but I was hoping . . . and then . . . I didn’t think . . .” She realized she was talking exactly the way he did, in choppy half sentences.

  “Yeah, well. I just thought I’d tell you. It’s not like I can go or anything, but it’s kind of nice to have gotten in.”

  Myra thought about what Johnny had said when she’d broached the topic once. “I don’t have any money to send anyone to university,” he’d told her, and she hadn’t known what to say, but she’d known what she’d wanted to say, and several times since then she’d wished she’d said it. I’ll pay. But if she’d said that, there was no telling what might have happened. Johnny might have gotten angry, or he might have been surprised to find out that she had money, that she had more than just her house in the city, which she currently rented out to two tenants, main floor and basement. “Have you told Johnny yet?”

  A shadow of alarm crossed Jesse’s face. “No. Because he’ll just . . . well, I know what he’ll say. And I don’t have a full scholarship, so there really is no way to pay for it, and even if there was, well, where would I live? It’s all just kind of a pipe dream, you know? But I wanted to tell you. Because I didn’t believe you when you said I was smart enough to get in, but I guess you were right. I mean, sure, I was wait-listed and all, but I still got in, and I thought you’d be impressed, and I also wanted to say thanks because, well, it made me feel really good . . . even if I can’t go.” These words came out in a rush and she imagined it probably wasn’t easy for him to say them.

  Myra took a breath. She put her hand on his, on top of the steering wheel, and she spoke loudly and firmly to be sure he heard her, to be sure he understood her, to be sure he knew she meant it. “Yes, you can go. I have the money to pay for it and I want to pay for it and I won’t take no for an answer.” His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak. “And I have a house in the city,” Myra continued. “We’ll live there.” Then she swallowed and took her hand away. “I mean, because I wouldn’t want you to live in my house alone, and also . . . I was planning on going back to the city anyway at the end of the summer. So it’s perfect timing.”

  She thought about Johnny and the way he had kissed her earlier and the idea of making love to him later in his bed in the cottage beside the marina. His bed. His cottage. His marina. His life.

  Funny. Instead of leaving behind a son, I’m taking one with me.

  5

  Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

  These large wading birds usually breed in colonies, in trees close to lakes or wetlands. Great blue herons are considered monogamous, not because they mate for life, but because they only have one mate per mating season.

  Iain had been the one to tell Helen that Liane was wearing her engagement ring. He was angry, she could tell. Or hurt. Or maybe both. “You didn’t even tell me it was lost,” he said. “You told me it was getting polished. Which, now that I think about it, is ridiculous. You would never do that.”

  “I knew I’d find it eventually.”

  “If we’re going to be married, we can’t hide things from each other.”

  “Sometimes things are better left unsaid.”

  “That’s not a good philosophy.”

  “Maybe one of the reasons I never got married, then. I don’t know the philosophies.”

  “It’s not a marriage philosophy to tell people the truth. It’s a general one. A life one.”

  And just like that, over the phone, while the girls were sti
ll there, they were in a fight. Or not a fight, but something. A tiff? Helen had grown tired of trying to classify these disagreements. Why do we have to do this? she wanted to say. We never fought, not once, until you decided we needed to be tethered to one another by a piece of rock and a legal document.

  “Aren’t you at least going to ask her why she’s wearing it and saying she’s engaged? I’m a bit concerned about her, to be honest.”

  “You hardly know her.”

  “She’s your daughter. I want to know her.”

  Helen felt herself soften. This was part of why she loved Iain so much. He cared about Liane already, because he cared about Helen. And she appreciated it. But she still wasn’t about to interfere.

  “She’ll explain it to me. I don’t want to embarrass her. And also, she’s had the kayak out. Did I tell you that? I think she’s had some kind of breakthrough about Wesley’s death and I don’t want to get in the way.”

  “What if she needs to talk, though?”

  “She’ll come to me. You don’t understand what it’s like with daughters.”

  “I have a daughter.”

  “Okay, then you don’t understand what it’s like with my daughters. I never pry. It’s just not my way. It always makes things worse. She’ll tell me what’s going on eventually.”

  “What if she doesn’t, and she leaves, still wearing the ring? Then what will you do?”

  “Liane wouldn’t do that. She knows it’s not hers. It’s just a matter of time until she explains.”

  At that point, of course, her weekend with the girls was still chugging along, despite the fact that Fiona had not shown up, throwing the equilibrium off in a way that surprised Helen. Helen had told Iain she needed to get off the phone then. She had said, “I love you, I really do,” and he had said, “I really love you, too,” but he had sounded more exasperated than usual.