The Half Wives

by Stacia Pelletier

  —You know what a customer asked me today? May said the night she stopped over. She leaned against the cottage’s front door, arms crossed, one plump hip jutting out at the angle of frustration.

  You slid a marker into your geology book.—Tell me.

  —He asked me: What does it feel like, being a single woman?

  —What did you say to him?

  —I said it feels like being a woman.

  The motorman has started to pull back into motion when the conductor instructs him to brake once more, this time for two stragglers, a girl and a woman scurrying aboard. The girl’s limp slows their approach. The woman walks with head high. Her hat is topped with a blue merle. Whoever stuffed that bird didn’t do a good job. One wing droops over the side rim.

  You return to your view out the window.

  According to that geology book, two different kinds of time exist on this planet. There is human time, and there is geologic. You read that last part aloud to May. To humans, ten years is a long time. To a rock, ten years is nothing. A more appropriate length of time about which a rock might feel concerned is a million years, or twelve million.

  —I can’t imagine, May marveled.

  I can, you almost said.

  What to you seems like forever—how long Blue needs to finish a bowl of oatmeal, for example, or how many years it’s taken you to admit you really did think Henry might leave his wife—these things occupy no time at all from the point of view of a rock. Erosion, weathering, subduction—these make up a rock’s worries.

  The conductor accepts his nickel fare from the late arrivals as the motorman prepares to start up the car again. The woman and girl file into the covered interior section, the girl leading the way. She wears a brace on one leg. She selects a seat across from you and lowers herself to the bench with a small sigh of relief. The woman slides in beside her. You look again. It’s Marilyn Plageman.

  You’d know Henry’s wife anywhere. You’ve seen her in person precisely once, the day you confronted Henry in his store and castigated him for being too sick to write, too laid up to inform you if he was living or dying. Once was enough. She has pulled her thick hair into a sophisticated twist. Her brow conveys intelligence, her eyes fatigue. You’re mere feet away. You could reach out and tap the toe of her shoe with your foot if you wanted.

  You try not to stare. She watches the passing landscape. She hasn’t noticed you. She notices the dunes and the wet street and the empty lots. She doesn’t have any reason to pay attention to you, to wonder about the woman seated across from her. No one has ever questioned her property, her right of possession. She can take for granted what’s hers.

  If she’s going to the cemetery, she’s early. If she’s ahead of schedule, there’s no way you can take Blue to see Henry.

  You study her, trying not to be obvious. Her hands are graceful, refined, the hands of an educated woman. She’s from Gettysburg, Henry used to say, as if that explained everything, as if you were equipped to grasp such a woman’s history, the layers of genealogy, religion, class, and culture that make up a Marilyn.

  You can’t stop looking at her hands. They’re lined but not weathered. Yours are weathered but not lined. Her hands have held your lover, comforted him, held his first child, gripped Henry in passion, and pushed him away. Because that’s what finally happened. Isn’t it? She pushed him away; you showed up to fill the gap. She retracted her claim; you stepped forward. You stepped too fast. Maybe she needed more time. Four years was not enough to find her footing after she lost Jack. For Henry, four years was more than he could endure. But it was not more than Marilyn could endure. Then along came you—the interloper.

  Blue watches the brace-clad girl with interest. She’s fascinated with young women just a few years older, compares herself to them. She stiffens on the bench, attempting to straighten her posture, trying to appear taller. You might be doing the same.

  You need to get off this car.

  Marilyn whispers to the girl beside her; the girl whispers back. Who is that child? Maybe Marilyn’s not headed to the cemetery. Maybe she, too, is breaking a habit today. Maybe she rose from her bed this morning reciting self-admonitions. Wouldn’t that be something.

  She glances over, and your eyes briefly meet.

  —Ma. Blue tugs at your elbow.—Will we see Ostrich before or after the snails? Will he come home with us after we go to the—

  —Hush, you say and pat her shoulder.

  She sighs audibly.

  Again your gaze finds Marilyn’s. She smiles at Blue’s sigh, looking at you, mother to mother, caregiver to caregiver. And you are the vilest woman on the planet. How can she not see what’s right before her? How can she not smell Henry all over you, ten years of him seeping from your pores, see the imprint of his body, his writhing, his joy, his guilt, his inability to leave her, his inability to leave you? How can she miss that history stamped all over you in the way you hold yourself, in the dress you’re wearing, the same black cotton day dress he once unfastened so hurriedly he tore a seam and you had to resew it later; how can she not find the truth in your eyes, in your child, in Blue? Good Lord, how can she not see Henry in Blue?

  Your daughter pokes you in the ribs.—I know I’m not supposed to talk, Mama, but I don’t feel good.

  I don’t either, you want to say.

  The two of you have shared everything two people can share without living together, without becoming lovers yourselves.

  When Marilyn retreats to her bed with a chest cold, a few days later, you contract her cough. When you roast mutton on a Wednesday, she smells garlic and cloves on Henry’s breath the following morning. You have plucked strands of her black hair off your sleeve, black hairs Henry came in wearing on his wool coat. Surely she has done the same in her corner of the world. Without a doubt she has plucked a blond hair from her dress after she hung it up next to Henry’s jacket in the wardrobe.

  Marilyn and Henry’s private life, their private moments, their attempts to stay alive to each other: these are utterly unknown to you.

  If Jack is moved out of the city cemetery, his disinterment will devastate Marilyn. What happens to Marilyn happens to Henry. Then he passes it to you.

  —I need more time, he used to plead with you.—I need more time.

  —For what?

  —To find a way to be with you.

  On good days you said: You already are with me.

  On bad days you said: Stop lying.

  —I have never lied to you, he cried.

  You nodded.—That’s true. You lie to yourself.

  He was never going to marry you. But he’s not married to Marilyn either. He’s yoked to that child in the ground, that child the city wants to move.

  The car has attained a respectable speed when Marilyn and the girl rise to their feet and, holding the overhead grips, cross up the aisle to the conductor. You can hear the girl asking Marilyn: Are you feeling ill again?

  This isn’t a scheduled stop. Something’s wrong. She’s bending the arc of the day.

  What’s the plan? you want to ask them. Where are we heading now?

  Marilyn leans forward and murmurs something to the conductor, who nods and says something to the motorman. He guides the car to a stop. Before she steps down, Henry’s wife twists around, delivering one final glance, taking in the sight of Blue. Recognition? No, but she’s straining to remember if she has seen this child before. Again her eyes find yours.

  Here we are, she seems to be saying, two women marooned out here in these dunes. Two women looking after two girls.

  —Safe travels, she says to the conductor. She and the girl step off the car into the empty street.

  What in God’s name were you thinking?

  —I need more time, Henry used to plead.

  Yes. Yes, Henry, you do. You need geologic time. Human time? You’re on your own.

  Marilyn

  HENRY WON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY when he sees you’ve brought an orphan. He’ll wonder why you’re dr
agging Ida into your private catastrophe, your once-a-year mudslide.

  Right now you’re helping her board the streetcar. The conductor takes your fare, freeing you to follow Ida into the covered interior, where you take a seat across from a young mother missing her hat, a woman with dirty-blond hair and a square, sturdy figure. She’s with a girl so bedraggled the child looks like she’s been hung to dry on a clothesline. The mother’s eyes meet yours. She’s younger than you are, but she’s wearing out faster. Her eyes look older than her face. She shifts in her seat to watch the passing streetscape.

  Ida, speaking softly, begins to tell you how she wound up at Maria Kip. She tells you about her original father—that’s how she refers to him, as if copies or imitations might be made—who, after losing Ida’s mother to illness, relinquished Ida to charity. She was six.

  —He didn’t want to send me away, she recalls.—But he didn’t want me to go hungry either. He didn’t have sufficient means, and I was too little to keep house for him.

  You pat her good knee.—And here I am, starving you too. I can hear your stomach growling.

  Ida settles more comfortably into her seat.—I saw him last week. I saw my original father.

  —Where?

  —At the Emporium. Mrs. Wood sent me on an errand, and I saw him. He’s married again. His new wife is going to have a child.

  —Goodness.

  The woman across the aisle glances up as her child sighs loudly. Again your eyes meet. She reminds you of the person you might have been if you’d lived this far west from day one, if you’d never known any home except the Outside Lands. She’s at ease. Resilient. Fearless. She probably marches through these desolate streets without hesitation. If she has a man, if she has a husband, she doesn’t need him. She doesn’t require him for sustenance. She forfeits her life for no one.

  —He was buying a needle and thread and a tin of buttons the day I saw him, Ida says.—He said his wife needed them. He said she was growing too fat for her dresses.

  —Did he ask you to return home?

  —No. He said he still couldn’t afford my keep.

  People are cruel. People are jaw-droppingly cruel, and Henry’s store does not carry buttons. It carries everything but. Which you think is ridiculous.

  —What kind of a store doesn’t carry buttons? you taunted, baiting him, one of the few times in recent memory you have felt any genuine flood of feeling, good or bad, toward your spouse, toward anyone other than Richard.—Do you think keeping them off the shelf is going to help anyone?

  Most of the time you experience only a dull possessiveness, a compulsion to check to make sure both Richard and Henry are home, inside, the door bolted; most of the time you want merely to reach out with one hand in the dark and confirm the presence of the thick-barreled body by your side. Yes, you sleep with a basset hound rather than a husband; what of it?

  —What kind of a shopkeeper doesn’t sell buttons? you repeated.—That’s ludicrous.

  Henry darkened.

  —It’s my decision. It’s my store. It’s my decision, Marilyn.

  —It must be nice to decide things, you flung back.—It must be perfectly wonderful.

  Ida bends to adjust her brace. It’s too small for her.

  —I didn’t think I was that expensive, she says.—Do you really think I would cost that much? He was buying an awful lot of things for his wife.

  You turn to take in the street. As the rain has eased, vapor and haze have slid in from the coast, erasing the long view. That might not be a bad thing. Maybe you’ll disappear in a puff of divine smoke and wake up tomorrow in a new body, with a new life. Would you like that? You might. Would you do it; would you choose to be a new woman if you could? Board a train that stays on the tracks this time. Avoid derailment.

  You could be the woman across the aisle. You could stand up, change places. Start over.

  —I don’t decide things, Henry shouted back that day; he towered, gaunt and stiff, a headache waiting to strike you.

  —I run a store, he went on.—That’s all. I run a hardware store. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to feed and house us. Otherwise we’d be living on the street, Marilyn.

  You didn’t blink.—You practically live there now.

  He laid his hand on top of yours.—Help me. Please. I’m trying here.

  He pulled you into his arms. At first you weren’t sure what he was doing, but he only hugged you. Contritely, you thought. Or maybe he was just sad.

  Once upon a time, your husband desired you more than anything. Once upon a time he went four days without eating while summoning the nerve to ask you to marry him. That Henry no longer exists.

  Ida nudges your shoulder.

  —Mrs. Plageman? You’ve gone white again.

  She’s right. You’re still not feeling well. You didn’t notice until she said something.

  —Is it your stomach?

  You nod.

  —The car’s making you seasick. We should walk. You did better when we walked.

  The only thing left in your stomach is acid, but that’s enough. You’d better get off this car before you become ill a second time.

  You haul yourself up and reach for the overhead grip. Ida rises too, sensing the urgency. She leads you to the front, where you ask the conductor to make an emergency stop.

  —For reasons of health, you whisper.

  —Of course, he swiftly says, and he turns to his motorman, delivers the request for a stop.

  Maybe he has a nauseated wife back home, or a daughter whose abdomen won’t stop aching. Maybe his mother suffers headaches.

  As the car slows to a halt, you glance back over your shoulder. The woman across the aisle is watching your departure. Her daughter, her squirming, buzzing bee of a daughter, reminds you of somebody, you can’t think whom. And the woman reminds you of someone you might have been friends with in another life.

  Not in this life. In this life, your only friend is Henry.

  —Want us to wait? the conductor asks.—If you only need a couple minutes, we can wait. Don’t want to leave a lady stranded.

  —We’ll be all right, Ida says on your behalf.—We can catch another car. She needs some air.

  He nods.—That’s one thing your ma’ll find plenty of out here.

  He has a northeastern accent. Maybe Boston. It’s hard to tell; you haven’t been back that way in years. His face is round and sympathetic. Part of you would like to throw your arms around this conductor, say to him, Take me out of here; take me anywhere, so long as it’s east.

  You step off the car, Ida leading, holding you by the arm. The motorman eases the car back into motion. You stand marooned in the middle of the street, abandoned through your own choosing.

  A woman should never push a good man away—that’s the rule. A man can push a good woman away; there are others, there exists for the man a pool. But a woman cannot pick and choose. You pushed Henry away—you broke the rule. You have forgotten how to be in the same room with him, how to listen, even though half the time that’s all you really want to do. Please God, let him communicate with you; let him say something. Anything.

  You want him to come back; at the same time, you won’t allow his return.

  He withdrew. Yes, but so did you. He wandered. Yes, fair enough, but so did you. You wandered inward; Henry wandered outward. You both strayed.

  The sharpest insight arrived the week you worked on the account books for his store, the week his tumble off Bailey laid him up in bed with an infection and you discovered sporadic withdrawals dating back years, modest amounts marked for petty cash, other odds and ends. This was cash the store never saw, cash Henry never used, at least not on merchandise and not on you.

  Later you went back and checked, and the withdrawals had stopped.

  You considered this information. You entertained the full range of scenarios. But this was Henry you were thinking about. Unshakable Henry. Steady-as-she-goes Henry. His dalliance is with the cemeteries.

  Y
ou went and sat before the mirror and inspected yourself. You were trying to see what Henry saw when he looked at you. Forty-one is not nineteen, no matter what angle a woman chooses. Plucking your eyebrows, then your eyelashes, proved a disaster. Especially when he walked in on you.

  That night, alone with Richard, you realized you were jealous. Of Henry. Yes, you were jealous of Henry. You would have liked to wander outward too, to roam freely, instead of this jabbing and stabbing inward, this infernal vacuum.

  You still would like to wander. You’d like to smoke a cigarillo on the front porch in full view of the Chamberses. Or sail across the bay alone at sunset.

  Where to? Where would you sail if you could? Portland. What would you do there? You have no idea.

  —Mrs. Plageman, Ida says.—You’re crying.

  1:00 p.m.

  Henry

  —THERE SHE IS, KERR SAYS.

  You’re twenty paces from the entrance when Bess sidles to a halt. This path winds off Clement Street into the first row of graves. Grass and sage skirt the trail. Across the street squats a caretaker’s cottage.

  Neglected graves, paupers’ graves, stretch far, headstones and footstones covering hillock after hillock, some listing, some toppled. Each grave once held a numbered board. Most of the numbers have faded.

  Kerr clucks twice. The plants shiver with Bess’s resumption of movement. Reluctantly she picks her way forward.

  —Plageman? he says and raises a hand.—I had an idea.

  Bess stops again, pretending the hand was meant for her.