You’d rather hear him say no right away than learn later that he’d run into problems. You couldn’t stomach the thought of being let down, abandoned at a clandestine altar. Also: You didn’t want him doing anything out of obligation. Or pity. You’d prefer anything to becoming the object of pity.
—I promise, Henry said.—Wild horses couldn’t keep me away, et cetera.
—Bailey kept you away, you reminded him.
But you agreed to meet him at the inn in Sausalito.
You asked May and June if they would watch Blue. They were willing. More than willing; they were delighted. Openly looking forward to the opportunity. Blue wasn’t. Your daughter said:
—I want to ride the ferryboat with you.
You shouldn’t have mentioned the ferry to her when you introduced the plan for the two of you to have separate adventures.
—You can’t, you told her.—Not this time. You’ll stay with May and June this time. Next time. This time is just for your father and me.
She wept.
You resorted to bribery. Suborned her with the prospect of a grandmother. You couldn’t believe the words coming out of your mouth.
—Or would you prefer to spend a week with your Grandma Christensen? She’s always wanted to meet you.
Blue stopped mid-outburst. A wriggle of interest escaped her. A visit with a grandmother? Yes. She approved.
You humbled yourself, wrote to your mother, lured her with the prospect of time alone with her grandchild.
Please come meet Anna. She’ll be yours for a week. I will be away.
Your mother wrote back saying one week wasn’t worth the time it would take her to travel west. A longer visit was in order. I will take her for one month, she wrote. Arrival date 14 July. Bring her to the station.
It would be her first time traveling to see you in California.
You took Blue to the Oakland Mole to meet her. The screaming whistle of trains arriving and departing the wharf made your daughter cover her ears. Freight engines wheezed, their sound interrupted by the ticking of steam pumps. The floorboards hummed with commuters. Everywhere you looked, you saw men rushing to be somewhere, filled with self-importance.
When the train pulled into the station, belching and steaming, you peered up into the passenger windows, and the first person you saw was your mother, her face tilted downward at an inspectorial angle. She had the same thin chapped lips you remembered from your childhood. Her eyes held a gloomy certitude that somewhere the sky must be falling.
She did not set foot on the platform until the train had emptied. She observed you in silence through the window. When she stepped down from the train, refusing the arm of the porter, you steered Blue over to her. Your daughter, suddenly shy, clung to your skirts.
—Mother. You smiled.—You look exactly the same.
—And you do not, she said.—You need to take care of yourself. The circles under your eyes are worse.
She turned to Blue and cupped your daughter’s chin in her hand, compelling Blue to meet her eyes.
—She’s too thin. What are you feeding her? Child, when is the last time you had a solid meal?
Blue’s eyes widened.
—Mother, you said.
You didn’t want to turn your daughter over to her, but you went ahead and did it. You needed those seven days. You have not asked for much from these last ten years, only seven days.
A poor excuse for a woman? A poor excuse for a person.
Your mother never forgave you for leaving Omaha. She never forgave you for “preventing” her from remarrying when she was young—even though she never wanted a second husband anyway, even though your company was already one more person than her natural disposition could endure.
And she has not forgiven you for producing a daughter with no husband in sight.
He died, you wrote when Blue was an infant.
In childbirth? she wrote back, then scribbled something, likely unrepeatable, in Swedish.
While the porter retrieved her luggage, you flagged down a hackney cab. Blue bounded inside first, face upturned, nervousness forgotten. She glowed with anticipation. Your mother boarded beside her. Blue forgot to wave goodbye to you; that’s how excited she was to be a granddaughter. You had to wave for her. The two of them would spend the following month sightseeing up and down the coasts of California and Oregon, a journey you’ve never taken.
You stood on the platform and watched them disappear from view. As the train pulled away, the wind kicked up stray papers and ticket stubs left behind by commuters. You went around and picked up this trash and deposited it in a waste bin. Your mother has this effect.
You felt thoroughly daughterless. You felt like the woman on the operating-room table who, awakening after surgery, after being carved down the middle, hears the doctor calling out a joke: Which half goes back to the ward?
Marilyn
SOMEONE ON THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS needs to approve a motion. The motion should state that Marilyn McLarty Plageman is not permitted to address a single soul on May 22, not a single blessed soul, save Henry Plageman. And probably not him either.
—Mrs. Plageman?
Mrs. Wood does not want to call you by your Christian name; she does not wish to lower herself to the level of friendship with you.
—We need to put these girls to work. If you’re feeling well enough—are you feeling well enough?—could you please help me extract some industry out of them? We’re still shorthanded in the kitchen.
—But they’re the guests of honor, you remind her.
—So they are. She briskly nods.—And they’ll continue to be. They’ll be helpful guests of honor. They’ll earn their keep.
She folds her arms and regards you with trained politeness.
—But we hired help, you argue. Henry’s combativeness with the neighborhood groups might be contagious.—We specifically hired help so the girls could stay in their good uniforms.
—The help never arrived.
—Did you actually send for anyone?
Mrs. Wood stiffens.—That was uncalled for.
Sorry. She doesn’t frighten you. And she can’t make you feel inadequate. If you’re going to feel inadequate, you can generate that feeling all on your own, thank you.
Ida squeezes your hand. She wants to leave this place.
—These girls aren’t the help, you say again.—You promised them. I promised them. You can’t ask me to go back on my word. We need another plan.
Says the younger woman, with youthful serenity:
—This is the other plan.
Ida squints up at her as if the devil has just come through.
Lucy
ON THAT FERRY RIDE TO SAUSALITO, you leaned over the deck rail to smell the sea, which blew foam in your nose and mouth. You watched the moving water. The fin of a shark or some other mighty fish slapped the ocean’s surface. When you looked again, whatever you’d glimpsed was gone.
Mid-July, a cool day, clear and windy, and everyone in that seaside town seemed in a fine mood, festive for no reason. After disembarking from the ferry, you pushed past a throng of passengers to make your way by foot along a winding path leading uphill to the Shoobert House. You carried a valise. It was not light. It contained two shirtwaists; two skirts; one pair of shoes; slippers; two sets of undergarments, including stockings; one nightdress, which you’d bought especially for the occasion; a hat; and three dollars from Henry hidden inside the lining, in case of emergency. You were sweating by the time you arrived.
Inside, a young clerk standing behind the front desk greeted you and asked how he could be of service.
—Christensen, you said, suddenly uncomfortable.—Mr. and Mrs. Christensen. Checking in.
The clerk checked his notes.
—Your husband made reservations for one o’clock. The room’s not quite ready. Is Mr. Christensen with you? We can serve you in the dining room while you wait.
—He’ll be here soon, you said, and rattled off the explanation you’d con
cocted days before.—He’s coming here on his way home from a long trip. For his business. For his store. He asked me to meet him here—
You blushed. The clerk reddened right alongside you. A finely dressed woman in navy and lace strode past you into the dining room. Perspiration slid down your spine, dampening the back of your dress.
—I understand, the clerk said.—Perhaps you might enjoy yourself in our dining room on your own, then? Until your . . . husband is able to join you?
—Thank you. You nodded and moved out of the way to avoid bumping into another guest, this one old enough to be your mother and wearing a look of judgment.
In the dining room, you ordered a Hood’s sarsaparilla, the cheapest thing on the menu, and drank it too fast, because you were nervous. You were the only unaccompanied woman in the room. The only perspiring woman in the room. Sparkling glass and crystal caught the light from the open windows; drinking glasses, shot glasses, rum bottles, flower vases on the tables—amber, topaz, peacock blue. As the noontime sun filled the dining room, the shelves behind the barkeep in the corner burst into color, winking and translucent, like wind chimes that come alive with a single gust, only these instruments produced no sound, only light.
An hour passed. The clerk found you and showed you upstairs.
—My husband must have been delayed at the station. He’ll be here soon, you floundered, not sure what to say, as the two of you walked toward the lift.
—Of course, the clerk said and colored again. Yours was not the first such arrangement he’d witnessed.—I’ll show him right up when he arrives.
Two hours passed. You reclined, fully dressed, on the bed and stared up at the scrollwork and wainscoting. Gradually your burning cheeks cooled.
Three hours. People do not appreciate that waiting is a skill. It must be practiced. One must run up and down its octaves regularly.
Four hours. The sun retreated.
By half past five the room had darkened to whorls of lavender and charcoal. By half past six, you had rolled onto your side and faced the window with the partially drawn shade, a window that overlooked the wharf and the bay. From this corner of the four-poster bed you could see no water. You lay in the darkening room on the top floor of the Shoobert House. You rubbed your eyes. Rubbed them clockwise, then counterclockwise; you tried to rub your eyes back in time. You opened your eyes. The same story appeared, the same chapter and verse.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
—They should have translated it as simply Stay in the day, Henry said one Wednesday evening after you’d mentioned this verse was one of your favorites.—They should have written, Just don’t get ahead of yourself. That’s all Matthew was trying to say.
—How do you know what he was trying to say? you replied.—I thought you quit the pulpit.
He’d returned home soon after.
By seven o’clock, you had curled into a fetal position. You’d unpinned your hair and let it fall loose onto the pillow. You wanted to seize a pair of scissors and cut off your hair, shear off some piece of yourself, something necessary and substantial.
You would not cry. You would bite the inside of your cheek off before you would cry. Any pain incurred was your own doing.
But he had promised.
Lying there in the blue-black twilight, you watched stray beams from the wharf as they bounced and glanced across the face of the inn. Light filtered through the curtain, igniting first one corner of the room, then another. You lay there in the blinking lights from the ships, under a canopy of old crown molding. You lay there a long time. Henry never came.
The following morning you made your way to the front desk and requested the bill for a one-night stay; you would not be able to use the remaining six days of your husband’s reservation. The clerk’s eyes met yours before dropping to the guest book. His lashes were as long as a girl’s.
—I can mail the bill to him, he said and pulled out his reservations book. He made his way to Christensen, glanced up, and whispered: Is this the right address?
You remembered the dollar bills tucked inside the lining of your valise. For emergencies, Henry had said. The word covers a wide swath of territory.
—I’ll pay, you said.
You returned to the Outside Lands alone.
Blue lifts her head from your shoulder. The streetcar has pulled into view, rumbling your way at a leisurely pace.
—The snails, she says.—Mama, there’s too much rain. It will drown all the snails.
You shift her weight from one hip to the other.—The snails will still be there in an hour.
—But they’ll be dead!
—Then we’ll take them to the cemetery with us, you can’t help but say.
Blue pulls her head away and stares at you, perplexed, blue eyes to blue eyes.
—We’re going to the cemetery?
What’s that flying past? It looked vaguely familiar. Ah, yes. Your self-admonitions.
Today was a habit you were supposed to break. You did. You are. You will. But breaks don’t have to occur in a single location. The bone can go in several places.
It was for the best.
You wouldn’t have tolerated each other for that amount of time. Seven days is some duration.
Maybe he passes gas in his sleep. Possibly you snore. Probably you would have waded into an argument.
It’s good you never found out. It’s to your benefit. Because if it was easy, if sleeping with him was like water, like swimming with the day’s first current, if when sunlight filtered through the curtain you did not want to leave his arms, could not bear to breathe apart from his limbs twined around yours, well, what then? Where would that leave things?
The day after you returned from Sausalito, you went and visited Jack. You hiked on your own to the northernmost part of the cemetery. You wouldn’t see Henry or learn what had happened to him for two days. When you did see him, he would insist on paying you back for the hotel. But it was his money in the first place.
—I know that, he would say.—I need to do it. Please let me do it, Lucy.
You went alone. Blue was sightseeing with her grandmother. Blue was having the vacation you and Henry had failed to have.
You stood in front of Jack’s marker, just you and Henry’s son, and listened to crows cawing.
—It’s you and me, little one, you said out loud.—It’s you and me. When everyone else is gone, you and I will still be here.
On the way out, you passed one of the Chinese burial grounds, its path strewn with garments so soaked from earlier rains that the clothing refused to burn. Two elderly men were trying to set them on fire.
You went over and offered to help. They searched your face, skeptical. You must have appeared to be a lunatic. A woman on the edge of acceptable society. A woman trying to pull herself back from that edge, unsuccessfully.
There was a reason he couldn’t come. Of course there was. There’s always a reason. And it’s always a good one.
Something about the store and a problem, or about Marilyn and a problem, or about the store and Marilyn, or about Marilyn and Penny; maybe a distressing letter had arrived from Marilyn’s sister, Penny. Or maybe it had to do with Jack; sometimes the reason is simply Jack. How can a child who died fourteen years ago interfere so much with the here and now? He just can.
It’s not like Henry tricked you; it’s not like he set out to humiliate you. He doesn’t mean to disappoint you. He just disappoints you. Besides, you brought it on yourself. You chose this. You consented to it.
Count your blessings, Lucy Christensen; you’ve escaped relatively unscathed compared to other women in similar states. Compared to the women in books.
Two hours until Marilyn arrives at the garden.
You can get there sooner. You can get there in one. If you hurry. If you board this streetcar right now. Right this second.
People say it alway
s ends. People say the wife always finds out. It ends in the cases people hear about.
12:00 p.m.
Marilyn
—YOU MUST DETEST CHILDREN. Do you have any children of your own, Mrs. Wood?
Two maroon spots of color blaze on the younger woman’s cheeks. Childless women retain a sourness about the mouth, you have decided, a faded bewilderment, a whiff of something missing, an amputation. A limb that wasn’t.
—I will not take instructions about the care and well-being of children from a woman who never had any, you continue.
Mrs. Wood blinks.—I was a girl once myself.
—Being a child is a far different thing than having a child.
—I know that. That’s not what I meant—
—And not having children is far different than having a child and losing him. That should be obvious to anyone. Do I have to spell it out?
—No one suggested it was the same. No one said anything at all about losing children. Are you all right, Mrs. Plageman? Are you feeling ill again?
Ida, chewing the end of her braid, glances back and forth between the two of you.
—What I’m feeling is none of your concern, you say.
—I apologize, Mrs. Wood replies, visibly stung, the blotches of color in her cheeks spreading to her ears and neck.
Oh God. Why won’t your mouth stop flapping? She doesn’t deserve your vitriol. She’s naive, she’s a bit officious, but that’s not a crime; if it were, the prisons would be spilling over.
—I need some air, you say.—Excuse me.
—Mrs. Plageman? Ida says.
—Yes. Mrs. Wood nods, jumping in.—Yes, that’s a good idea. Why don’t you both take the air?
Ida, now, she’s a human Richard, waiting by your side without needing to be called. Is it strange to love a child because she reminds you of a basset hound?
You make your way toward a side door. The guests mingle and throng, corpulence in motion, the women as round and pasty as confections. The men block your path with their bulky, meaty bodies, signaling to one another, their cronies from high society, calling out across the streamers and bunting.
The Half Wives Page 16