The Half Wives

by Stacia Pelletier

  Kerr reaches over to steady the crate. As Stevens watches his effort, his countenance clouds.

  —Henry? Did anyone at the police station tell you how things turned out last night after you left?

  All these plants have turned the driver’s box into a moving terrarium, leaves and stems and petals all crammed together. The white spathes bob as the returning rain strikes them.

  —No one told us anything, you say.

  Kerr looks up from the plants.—What’s the word? What idiocy have they tried now?

  —Wait here, Stevens says.

  He disappears inside and returns with the morning Call. His wire glasses are flecked with rain.

  —See for yourself. I’m sorry to tell you. They took a vote last night. They called a vote without you, Henry!

  —That’s illegal. Kerr frowns.—We weren’t there for it.

  —It’s not illegal, you say.

  —Blackguards, the foreman sputters.

  The Call’s pages are damp. Water has blurred the ink. Either that or your eyes are deteriorating. Kerr shifts in his seat, his newly petaled quarters. For the remainder of the journey, you two will sit knee-deep in calla lilies.

  Stevens helps you find the relevant page.

  —There. The news is right . . . there.

  Page fourteen contains the offending column. Huddling in the rain, you and Kerr digest the words in silence.

  The Richmond Property Owners Protective Association unanimously passed a resolution last night. They did it right after you left, after they’d hauled you and Kerr off to the park station. They held a stealth vote.

  Therefore be it resolved that we, the citizens and property-owners of the Richmond district, in mass-meeting assembled, do petition the honorable Board of Supervisors of this City and County to take immediate steps to exchange the City Cemetery property for other property outside the County and prepare the acquired lands for burial purposes and have all bodies removed thereto from the present site.

  Have all bodies removed from the present site. Have the bodies removed.

  Kerr straightens, tries to relight his pipe, curses when the flame sputters out.

  —God for us all and the devil take the hindmost.

  They’re going to dig up Jack.

  Marilyn

  HENRY WON’T BE READY. His lilies won’t all be planted. He’ll have to live with that fact. He’ll have to accept imperfection.

  Little survives this far west but wind and whatever can survive wind: beach sagewort, sticky monkey flower, Franciscan wallflower, its golden petals shaped like a cross. Scrub jays and great blue herons dwell here too, as do wild turkeys. And mourning doves. Their calls, their distinct clarion messages, fill your ears. Two egrets perched on a utility pipe watch Ida limp past.

  She’s doing her best with her brace, but she shouldn’t be walking this far on it. Taking her with you wasn’t prudent. But she wanted to come, and so she’s yours, at least for now.

  —Are you feeling any better, Mrs. Plageman? she asks.

  The bitingly cool air has relieved your nausea.

  —Yes. Yes. Thank you, Ida.

  —I think she was an awful woman, that Mrs. Wood.

  —She has good intentions. She tries.

  Ida makes a face.—She’s mean.

  —How so?

  —She orders us around twice as much as the assistant headmistress. She makes the littlest girls run her personal errands. She told one of them to wash her stockings while she was sick with mumps.

  —While Mrs. Wood was sick with mumps?

  —No. The girl.

  —Then maybe Mrs. Wood will catch them. The mumps.

  Ida tries to cover a smile with her hand.

  —It’s all right to laugh once in a while, you tell her.

  It’s advice you’d do well to take yourself.

  Women endure the anniversaries of lost children all the time. Some more than one. Maybe you make this pilgrimage every May 22 less from sorrow than from anger, voyaging year after year in pure celestial rage. You are not the victim, the martyr everyone assumes. Because you didn’t lose just Jack that day. You lost Henry. You gave them both up, Jack and Henry, young Henry of the white sheets and the curtains billowing as you sank against the eiderdown, the day you slipped into sleep afterward.

  Ida’s stomach rumbles. If you’re going to abduct her, the least you can do is feed her something.

  —You’re hungry.

  —Not too much, she says loyally.—Not very.

  —And you’re tired.

  —No, ma’am.

  —We’ll catch the streetcar. Can you walk a few more blocks? If we head south, the Clement Street car will take us straight to the cemetery. I should have thought of it sooner.

  You’ll board the car at Eighteenth. This girl has earned it. It’ll be easy to catch the line headed west, the one that comes from the French Hospital. You can ride together for the remaining distance. Save her some wear and tear on that leg.

  —Where are we going again? she asks.

  —Potter’s field. The city cemetery. To meet my husband.

  She looks at you trustingly. You haven’t earned that look.

  Are you unmoored? No. You are, however, dry-docked. You can pretend you’re floating, but you’re not. You’ve struck earth. Rather: you struck water once and it turned to earth, just as Moses struck his staff once and it turned to serpents, all because he wanted to prove his rivals wrong, all because he wanted to show them his God was powerful.

  Henry doesn’t believe in miracles. Lutherans as a whole remain skeptical of the concept. Ages ago, in Gettysburg, back before life horsewhipped him, you asked his opinion about events of a supernatural nature, and Henry quoted Luther for his answer, some arcane reference to the unchanging nature of divine revelation.

  —Don’t tell me what Luther said, you returned.—Tell me what you say.

  He smiled.—It’s not that miracles never happen. I suspect once in a great while they do. It’s just that they make unreliable forms of communication compared to what God has already revealed to us through His Word.

  —Meaning what? you pressed.

  —We don’t need them.

  You should have married a Roman Catholic.

  A low bank of clouds slides into view at the crest of the next hill. A few more blocks until you start falling apart in earnest, Cinderella at the tail end of the ball, only where today is concerned, there is no ball, and no gown, and no solicitous prince, only a headstone and a husband shabby as a lean-to, a husband with a spade and a scowl who will not be ready. Henry needs time to himself. He needs more time to himself than anyone living. He will never be ready for you.

  —Why is Mr. Plageman in the cemetery? Ida asks.

  —He’s gardening. Planting lilies.

  —I see, she says, though she doesn’t.

  You soften your voice.—I’ve really stolen you away from your special day, haven’t I?

  —I don’t mind, ma’am. I prefer it. It’s quieter here.

  Maria Kip’s new facility will test this young woman’s reserves. More square footage means more orphans. And more orphans means more chaos, the lovely and unavoidable noises of childhood. Even unhappy childhood.

  —I’ll stay out of your and Mr. Plageman’s way, she vows.—I will. Anything’s better than Mrs. Wood.

  She bends and adjusts one of the buckles on her brace. When she straightens, her cheeks are rosy.

  —Mrs. Plageman? Do I have to return to Maria Kip?

  Oh no. She thinks you want to adopt her. You have no intention of adopting her. You don’t have room. You’re stealing her, kidnapping her for a single afternoon; someone to keep you company, to distract you momentarily—a cruel reason, a cruel use of a person always.

  She scuffs her shoes against the grimed street and waits.

  —Oh, child, you say.

  And then you can’t think what else.

  You still harbor hopes your sister will visit someday. One day Penny
will bound through your door, husband or no, children or no; in your mind’s eye, these details don’t matter. You’ll fall to your knees, wrap yourself around her solid pioneer waist, and beg her solid pioneer heart to come back or, better, to take you with her, to whisk you away to the Oregonian forests, another place where the trees are older than nations.

  Ida smoothes a stray lock of hair off her forehead. Her green ribbons have begun fraying. The streetcar stop is within sight.

  —Ida, you say.—You’ll have to return to Maria Kip. I’m very sorry. But not just yet. Not for a little while yet.

  —Yes, ma’am, she says.—Though I do prefer it with you.

  Henry

  —I CAN TELL HER WHAT IT’S BEEN LIKE, Kerr says.—Battling these buffoons. You did everything a man could.

  The city will move Jack’s remains south of San Francisco. Strangers will dig up his coffin and rebury it half a day away, three rail transfers away. And Marilyn will hold this latest disaster against you. She’ll prop it up, lean it up against the others. She’s built a shelf of your shortcomings. She’ll clap this newest one on as a bookend.

  —I’ll tell your wife you did everything a man could, the foreman goes on.—Up to and including criminal behavior. Think where we spent the night.

  No, Marilyn won’t survive the news. She’ll endure, but that’s not the same as surviving.

  None of this helps Lucy either. Lucy, whose name still ruins you; Lucy, the thought of whom has not ceased to upend you; Lucy, who’s busy cutting the tether to release herself from you. And you watch her progress, admire it. It’s like swallowing a razor, but you admire it. She saws and saws at her bonds each night, severing the cord, but in the morning when she rises, the rope that binds her to you reappears, fibrous and new. You feel frantic when you contemplate her efforts, her Sisyphean labors. Lucy Christensen absolutely needs to be free of you. And you are the only one who can help her do it.

  When Marilyn shows up at the cemetery, she’ll take one look at you and instantly comprehend the truth. She’ll wonder what you spent the past two years fighting for, if only to lose.

  —Plageman? Penny for your thoughts.

  —They’re not worth that much.

  You try to fold Stevens’s newspaper, but the pages are tearing. So you ball it up and pitch the whole thing into the sand. It lands in a wet clump in front of Bess, who lowers her head and sniffs at it. Silver grit streaks her coat.

  Everyone praises the man obsessed with a long-shot cause who winds up on top. But what about the man obsessed with a long-shot cause who winds up on the bottom?

  Stevens rails, decrying the vote; he paces the length of the hearse as Kerr from his driver’s box begins to fulminate. They suggest next steps, concoct potential reprisals. You remain apart from them, head lowered against the rain, and wonder how to persuade feeling to return to your extremities.

  —I don’t see how they’ll ever relocate a cemetery, Stevens says.—They don’t know how to plan a mass disinterment. Those fellows are so disorganized!

  Kerr says: They’ll figure it out.

  —What’ll they do with the Chinese? Do they have any idea how many bodies are in that ground?

  —Thousands, Kerr replies.—And no.

  For the love of God, your son is in that ground.

  —The Chinese won’t let their kin be touched, Kerr continues.—The Chinese will dig up their own, at midnight if they have to. They’ll ship the bones back to their homeland. Bury them next to their ancestors.

  Stevens tugs distractedly at his hair.—How will the city know who’s who? How will anyone keep the names straight? Most of them don’t have names.

  Your head lifts.—They had names.

  Kerr nods.—Just not on the headboards. By Jove. What rotten idiots.

  He sighs and continues.—I saw the disinterments back at Yerba Buena. Years ago. Leg bones in one corner, skulls in another. It was hell. And I’m a cemetery man.

  You have started to imagine a time when not seeing Lucy will feel routine, will be commonplace. The requirements of life are stepping in to fill the gap, to crack the whip. You slog on, defiant. You resist. You obey and resist both.

  You’ll keep visiting Blue. You’ll see her whenever Lucy allows. What else can you do? You cannot keep her.

  Kerr clears his throat.—Plageman . . .

  You look over at him, still enthroned on his driver’s box.

  —It’s nearly one o’clock. Do you want to keep on or swing back? You’re in charge here.

  Adds Stevens: This time next year, there might not be any city cemetery left to visit. I’m afraid it’s over, Henry.

  You shake your head. Just because someone says it’s over . . .

  That’s lesson six, if anyone’s counting.

  —So here are our options, you say.—We can forge ahead.

  —Or we can stop, Kerr offers.

  —Stop and howl in place, Stevens says.

  —No one’s doing any howling, Kerr replies.

  You meet the foreman’s eye.—Day’s not over.

  —Henry? Stevens says.

  You raise both hands, signaling enough.—I have to put these plants in the ground. All of them. And in the next hour. That’s as far as I can plan today. That’s as far as I can travel.

  Stevens briskly nods.—Let’s get you two on your way, then, he says, and bids the foreman goodbye. Next he embraces you, not something he ordinarily does. He pats your back with such filial steadfastness your eyes involuntarily water.

  Sometimes you think Stevens grasps the truth about your life, about you and Marilyn. Sometimes you think he sees and understands a great deal, and says nothing.

  Bess pulls into the widening lane. Stevens stands outside the shop door and raises one hand in a farewell salute. The calla lilies shudder in their crates as Bess pulls her burden forward.

  Blue’s birthday, that last night, before things fell apart: Lucy stood and bent over the infinitesimally small bald spot that recently has appeared on the top of your head. She kissed it and called you her ostrich, borrowing Blue’s word. She resumed her seat on the bench, sliding in beside you, her hip touching yours. She was in her stocking feet, and she slid her toes up your calf as you two shared a steam beer from the same glass and waited for Blue to come inside from playing outdoors.

  She looked over the rim of the glass.—I need to tell you something, Henry.

  —What’s that?

  You were weary. The two of you had not been right for months. Not for a year, if you were honest. You’d tried to hold things together, but more and more you were holding things together for her, not with her. You were losing her piece by piece.

  This only works if we both believe in it, you had said to her.

  —What do you need to tell me? you repeated.—What is it, Lucy? I’m here.

  —If I say it, don’t let it travel to your head.

  —Not much does at this stage.

  She reached out and took your hands in hers.

  —You’re still the only one I want to talk with, Henry. Your hand is still the only hand I want to hold.

  The lamp glowed at her side. Her eyes reflected an oceanic light.

  Just then Blue burst through the door, spackled with mud and seawater, your daughter on her eighth birthday, a miracle, yes, a miracle, dripping with sea and sand, wielding some wonder of nature, a starfish, a fossilized fern, a living mole.

  An hour later, your conscience battered the door.

  Kerr pats Bess’s rump. He prefers being on the move. A tortoise’s pace, but a pace. Half an hour to the cemetery.

  —Good to be back on the road, he says expansively.—Good to be wandering the great wide open.

  Bess’s eyes are filmy and milky, with almost no lashes. She must suffer constant conjunctivitis from the sand that flies her way, ground-up minerals spewed by the sea, traces of gold dust lingering over Lands End and Point Lobos.

  A couple of weeks ago you caught Marilyn plucking out her own eyelashes,
pulling the offenders out one by one, leaving bare patches. They’ve started to grow back, though slowly.

  When you discovered her pulling them out, you gripped her shoulders and propelled her away from her mirror, which sits in the corner, where the crib used to be. She paled, and her chin trembled above the high collar of her nightgown.

  —How dare you walk in on me, she said.

  —Stop, sweetheart, for God’s sake, stop, you pleaded.—Is this about Jack?

  In that moment you thought: She knows.

  The rain has given way to the fog. The fog unfurls like a scroll. The mare groans west.

  Lucy

  AT EIGHTEENTH AND CLEMENT the streetcar clangs to a stop. Three passengers disembark, pulling their coats tight against a rising wind. The rain is letting up.

  You passed Henry’s store some blocks back but couldn’t bring yourself to look out the window for it. You can’t afford what’s inside.

  In a few minutes you’ll arrive at Sutro’s. From the depot, you’ll hurry home, change Blue’s clothes, let her inspect her snails. Then: to the cemetery. It’s close. Within walking distance. Practically a hop-skip, if the walk’s brisk. Very brisk.

  You’ll be in and out of the mariners’ burial ground before Marilyn shows up, before you have time to regret it. Blue will be able to see her father. And time will come to a halt for the five minutes you stand and watch her beaming up at him. He’ll crouch down to take in the sight of her, speak with her, observe her showing off the day’s wounds, now bandaged. He’ll draw her into his arms. Time will stop almost entirely.

  You’ve been reading about the natural history of San Francisco. You borrowed a geology book from Sutro’s library months ago. You and Henry used to read it aloud to each other, chapter by chapter, on Wednesdays until nightfall, sitting outside in twilight.

  You’ve gone ahead and finished the book without him, reading in the evenings before you turn in. You arrived at the final page alone. There was no other option. Otherwise you never would have finished the book.

  May stopped by one of those nights. Sutro’s ticket seller is closing in on fifty, salt-and-peppery and wide. Her loyalty disguises itself as cantankerousness. She and June are aware of Henry. They grasp the basic elements of the relationship. Over the years they have seen him coming and going. They raised no questions when you asked them to watch Blue the week you went to Sausalito. They brought over a loaf of fresh bread and butter after you returned early, one day after your departure, speechless with humiliation. They didn’t pry. They fed you buttered toast.