The Half Wives

by Stacia Pelletier

  Your son choked on a button. Your son worked a red button off its thread, off his quilt, a brand-new blue-and-white quilt you had pieced together as a present for his second birthday and laid over him for the first time an hour before. That tiny button lodged itself in his windpipe while you and Henry lay milking each other in the next room, two beasts plagued with thirst. And then here came God, swaggering into the sunlight, saying:

  —Here is your son, your offering. Fools.

  Ida hobbles to the far side of the path. The trail curves toward one of the Chinese grounds. An abandoned tunic covers one of the graves, its sleeves flapping as the wind returns. Someone has come and gone and left behind a set of scraping tools.

  Recently you read that the Chinese do not want the bones of women and children under the age of ten to be removed once they have been consigned to the earth. The discussion appeared within a Call article debating the cemetery’s fate. You turned the page, but not before you had taken in the editorialist’s ill-informed claim, his argument about ancient traditions unknown to him.

  The Chinese believe a woman loses her identity and therefore her usefulness once she departs for the unknown, the writer maintained. And their tradition holds that a child’s death is a punishment or affliction for some crime the parents committed. As a consequence, the unoffending babe is “hurriedly got rid of” immediately after death.

  —The Call is no expert in anything other than good old-fashioned ignorance, Henry scoffed when you reported this information. But the description stayed with you.

  After you read that letter from Henry, that letter he hasn’t given you, the front door opened and shut; you heard him uttering something to Richard as the two of them shuffled into the kitchen. Your husband performs the same ritual daily. He stands before the stove, fills it with coke, lights it, puts water in the kettle, and sets it on the stove. He readies the percolator, scoops in grounds for coffee, and waits for the water to boil. He keeps vigil, slump-shouldered, fair hair falling into his eyes, the slightest hint of a potbelly protruding when his carriage is poor, his age showing in the hard light of late afternoon. He watches over that kettle until it sings, and then he pours the water into the percolator, retrieves two cups from the cupboard, and waits again. He excels at waiting. He can stand unmoving for fifteen minutes, fifteen years, if no one interrupts him.

  You slipped the letter into the pocket of your skirt and ducked into the kitchen, where you rested your head against the door frame and watched him without speaking. The slope of your husband’s shoulders affected you, pained your heart. His shoulders never used to slump. They used to be broad. They used to be thrown wide with music. They used to carry you.

  You recalled his dogged good cheer, the way he insists, even now, at some personal cost, on the goodness of this life, a grace he continues to believe will spring forth, is springing forth.

  You asked him about it. The words slipped out before you could stop them.

  —From which desert? you said.

  He turned from the stove.—What’s that?

  Normally you are not so opaque nor so desperate. But you wanted an answer to the question.

  —From which desert do you believe that the goodness of life will spring forth, Henry?

  He misunderstood. He wasn’t listening. Or he was.—There are springs everywhere, he said.—Under Golden Gate Park there are subterranean springs. There’s water all over the Outside Lands, if you know where to look. We could go on a walking tour. I could show you.

  —I know where to look, you said, shaking your head.—And we live in the middle of a sand dune.

  The kettle began to sing. He took it off the stove and let it sit. He needed you to understand his point of view.

  —The dunes have water. Think about how much it rains, Marilyn. Rainwater drains from the highest hills westward and collects in the springs for us to use.

  —Drains to where? you said.—And you’re not answering the question.

  Really, enough was enough. If you cannot see water, if no visible sign of water exists, then there should not be any water. Right? Your husband should stop claiming water’s existence where there is none.

  He left the kitchen to pull out a map of the Richmond from the bookshelf. Returning, he began trying to explain the topography to you.

  —Since when did you start caring about rocks? you said.

  —See here? Rainwater drains from the slopes of Lone Mountain, here. And from the heights of Mount Sutro. And the tallest point at Lands End, and Strawberry Hill, and the lake in the park. All of them drain to Lobos Creek and Mountain Lake—he jabbed at the spot—here. You’ve been there. We’ve been there together. Haven’t we?

  He lifted his eyes helplessly.

  —I don’t remember, you said, just as helplessly.

  You might love him because of those shoulders, not because they are strapping and protective but because they once were and now are not. His shoulders and his hope both upend you.

  —Mrs. Plageman? Ida asks.—Why is your husband in the cemetery?

  —He’s gardening. I told you.

  You’ve already explained the plan to her. Everything repeats itself on May 22.

  She nods, but she wants to know why he’s gardening. Everyone wants to hear that tale. People want to know what happened. How he died. How Jack died. And if you grant them one morsel, they snatch for another. As soon as someone hears the Plagemans lost a child, their first question is always: How? People want the cause of death spelled out. They want to ensure the same misfortune will not strike their house. They want to imagine the death and feel better, smarter, luckier, whatever their God allows, that their family has not suffered the same fate, that their baby is safe at home batting a silver mobile over his head.

  Their second question is always: How old?

  And their third is: Who found him? By which they also mean: Whose fault?

  Since that day, you have lost the capacity to make love to your husband. As soon as you sense Henry’s hunger, less for sex than for touch, less for touch than for solace, and less for solace than for someone simply to stand beside him, facing the silence of years, whenever you sense that famishment, that loneliness, you remember Henry’s buttocks shining in the Sunday-afternoon light, your husband’s naked buttocks clenching as he bent and lifted his burden from the cradle, swung his burden in a sunlit circle, the child he had promised to check, promised and then forgot, walloped by sleep, and you remember him begging the heavens for help, saying, Oh God, please don’t let this be happening, please don’t do this to us, as if movement alone could heal, as if all any of us requires in the end is a whirl, a whorl, a push of love, and we will reanimate, resuscitate; we will claim that promise that says God knows His plans for us; God wants to look kindly on us in our latter end.

  Henry was a pastor. Do you see your dilemma now? He was a pastor. He has since quit. But his eyes stay old.

  Henry

  THIS QUADRANT OF THE CEMETERY is so dry that the rain can’t dampen the ground for long. The wind electrifies the sand. It moves. It’s alive. It twines around Bess’s legs, tendrils snaking, caking the back of your trousers. It streams up the footpath, curves north. Welcome to San Francisco, where those beneath the earth remain as segregated as those who walk on land.

  You can recite the names of the associations that will be affected by the closing: Improved Order of Red Men. Christian Chinese Society. Slavonic Mutual Benevolent Society. Greek Russian Slavonian Benevolent Society.

  The poorest of the poor lie scattered in every direction, mounds of the indigent on all sides, crammed in corners. Sand travels through hollows and dead grasses.

  German Benevolent Society. Scandinavian Society. French Benevolent Society. Congregation Schaarai Zedek. Italian Benevolent Society.

  Bess lightly leans against your shoulder, eyes closed. She does not like gusting sand.

  A voice calls out to Kerr. The voice is yours.

  —Get me a plant, will you?

 
A verse from the Old Testament springs to mind. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, said the Lord to Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you hope in your latter end. But look how Jeremiah’s life turned out.

  Bess pauses in the middle of the path, encircled by graves. She nibbles at your collar. You repeat your request.

  Kerr leaves her other side and returns to the driver’s box, where he retrieves one of the lilies. He returns and sets the plant in its small pot on the ground at your feet. He crosses his arms and waits. Bess, too, observes with equanimity.

  Your throat is dry as you reach for the plant.

  —Now I need the trowel.

  The foreman nods and makes his way to the rear of the hearse, leaving the shovel untouched. He retrieves the trowel and hands it silently to you. Overhead fly two brown pelicans. You’re holding Bess’s halter with your free hand.

  Congregation Beth Israel. St. Andrew’s Society and Caledonian Club. Qui Son Tong Company. Hop Wo Association. Ning Yung Association.

  —What are you doing? he asks.—This isn’t the right place. These are the paupers. This isn’t your son’s burial ground.

  How does he know where you are buried? Where Jack is buried? The skin is but one organ; the earth is but one surface. A man can exsanguinate from a single cut in the base of his foot. You can plant a lily here amid the unnamed. Who says a man should mourn only the ones who belonged to him? Are you not permitted to mourn the ones who didn’t belong to you, to grieve the lives you missed? What else did you bury Jack here for, if not this?

  —Plageman. Henry. Look. You’re not doing anyone any good here. My friend, this isn’t why we came.

  The day is tilting off its axis. Kerr’s starting to grasp this fact.

  You release Bess and he snatches her halter. You cross to the closest of the paupers’ graves. You set the plant down, reach for the trowel, and dig. Penniless grit swirls in your face.

  Don’t hit anything. Don’t dig too deep. Dig wide. Always dig twice as wide as you think the roots need.

  That’s the last lesson.

  You pull the lily from its clay pot and nestle it in the hole. You cup the sand and pour it back in. It flies up. More flies up then down. The grains dance.

  —Water, you call out.—I need water.

  Kerr finds the water jug in the rear of the hearse and brings it over. Bess looks on impassively. You take a swig. That’s better. You pour some into the soil. It glugs into the sand, the plant greedily absorbing. You toggle the plant until it’s firmly in place. It tilts. Retilt it. Tip it right. Get those roots in. One grave down, a thousand to go. You’re planting memorials at the wrong end of the cemetery, memorializing the wrong child, the wrong family, the wrong tribe and nation.

  Is this the right thing to be doing? Not sure; keep going.

  What about Blue? Don’t think about her. Don’t think about how much you loved her. The thought of Blue is absolutely unbearable.

  —Get me another, you command, coughing, your throat shuttered. You sound like Kerr now; that’s what they say an hour in the city cemetery will accomplish.

  Chuc Sen Tong Company. Ladies’ Seamen’s Friend Society. Societa Cosmopolita Italiana d’Mutua Beneficenza. Grand Army of the Republic. Knights of Pythias. Society of Old Friends.

  Maybe that last one is where you and Lucy belong. Maybe that’s where you’ll wind up one day, if you’re fortunate: the Society of Old Friends.

  Maybe all this straining and striving and coming apart boils down to friendship. She is your friend. Your only friend, if you’re honest, if by friend you mean someone from whom you do not have to hide your true life. If that is the definition of friendship, if that is the requirement, then yes, you possess one; and you will never have more than one, because even if you stop seeing her, even though you have stopped seeing her, even though she has stoppered up her heart with a precision and savagery you do not possess, you will not share the truth, these past ten years, with anyone. You will box the tale up, lock it away, secure it underground, beneath those wretched water pipes she’s always writing about. You’ll remain standing long after that box is buried. You’ll endure as half a man, half a person.

  It’s not that unusual.

  You plant four more lilies in the wrong place before Kerr takes you by the arm and forces you to your feet.

  —Enough, he says, and points down the path.—Plageman, someone’s coming.

  A woman.

  Marilyn

  IDA PUSHES HER BRAIDS back from her face.

  —Are we heading the right way, Mrs. Plageman?

  —Of course.

  Maps are not required in the city cemetery. Familiarity with subterranean springs is not required. You’ve been here enough times.

  You lean into the wind. It pushes against your chest. You’re climbing uphill, rounding the second Chinese field, nearing one of the paupers’ enclaves.

  There is still the letter to consider. Yes, you still have that letter. Did Henry intend it for you?

  You’ll find out when you see him. You’ll read it in his expression. You’ll know the truth within the first five seconds.

  —Mrs. Plageman. Look!

  Ida points.

  There, up ahead, near the crest of the hill, crouches the man himself, your husband, aswim in a sea of beggars’ graves. There he is, and an old man and a vile hearse besides.

  He’s on his knees, tugging a plant from a pot. A trowel and a water jug flank him. Wilting calla lilies surround him. Yes, that’s your Henry, marooned in the wrong burial ground, digging the wrong memorial. Planting in the wrong place.

  You leave Ida and start running.

  2:00 p.m.

  Henry

  NEVER BEFORE HAVE YOU SEEN your wife run. With one hand, she steadies the merle topping her hat; with the other, she clutches her skirts.

  A girl trails behind, clad in a cheap frock and pinafore, courtesy of the grand new Maria Kip. The headmistress forces those girls to wear those uniforms to deliver a lesson, telling them to be grateful, reminding the children that were it not for charity, for the wealthy, they would be homeless. But gratitude is not grace.

  Lilies tipping from clay pots encircle the nearest graves. The four you’ve planted raise their thin heads high. Their leaves droop from the shock of transplant.

  You haven’t made it to the mariners, haven’t reached Jack yet. Marilyn will ask what in God’s name you’re doing, allowing yourself to be sidetracked. The words are forming; the question’s bubbling; it’s a matter of seconds; she’s within chastising distance. Her eyes reflect the gilded light. She’s lovely, flushed; running has stolen her breath.

  You set the trowel aside and rise to meet her. You’re a mess; wiping your hands on your trousers only makes things worse. You’re filthy, covered with grime, a catastrophe.

  Behind Bess, as he leans against the side of the hearse, Kerr relights his pipe, asks:

  —That the missus?

  She’s nearly upon you.

  You nod. Don’t answer Kerr; don’t answer Marilyn. Don’t answer anyone, not today, not anymore. You don’t have any more explanations to distribute. You’re out of stock. Best to dig a trench and crawl in it; burrow into the earth’s magma. Or maybe sleep. There’s a thought. Sleep for a day, or two, or a year. You haven’t slept soundly, truly soundly, in fourteen years, if you’re honest. You’ve worn yourself out, worn your life out, shuffling between worlds, between cottages, learning two vocabularies, two dialects, two histories, a bifurcation of your own making, all because you could not find a way to release Lucy. Or Blue. Or Marilyn. Or Jack. What kind of man says: I am enough for two women. I can juggle. I can satisfy both. Is that what you said? No. Did you ever say it? Possibly the first ten seconds. And now? You can’t satisfy one woman, let alone two. Both Marilyn and Lucy have assessed your capacities and found you wanting.

  Marilyn weaves through the half-buried headstones and the footboards that have reverted to driftwood.
Her dark hair tips her head back with its weight. As she crosses the sand, she looks straight at you.

  Behind her, the orphan girl stops at the gate and wrinkles her nose, inhaling incense and smoke from the Chinese burial grounds. The girl’s eyes hold fear. Tunics flap and snap in the wind, tunics held to those faraway graves with stones, like pale birds pinned under detritus after a storm.

  —Henry, Marilyn says.—You’re planting in the wrong place.

  Blue

  —WALK WITH ME, Ma says.—Don’t race so far ahead.

  —It’s not my fault you’re slow, I say.

  —Listen to me. Blue, I need to explain something before we reach your father. I need to tell you something.

  We’re making a beeline for the turnoff to the cemetery, which is where Pa takes me to play. Or where he used to take me. Hardly anything but loons and gulls live this far west.

  —Where is he? I ask.—Where’s Pa?

  —A little farther. We’ll reach him in a few minutes. Sweetheart, you can’t listen when your back is to me. Come here.

  —You told me to hurry. You told me to walk as fast as I can. I’m obeying!

  —And now I’m telling you to slow down. I’m only asking once.

  Actually, this makes twice. I stomp to a halt. Sand has found its way into my cowboy chaps. I put my hands on my hips, just the way Ma’s doing. My hat slides off; it’s still too big. Her eyes rake over me.

  —What’s wrong now? she asks as she stoops to pick up my hat.

  —Nothing. You told me to walk fast.

  —You know what I mean. Something upset you back at the cottage while I was outside. What?

  —Nothing! My bandages are hurting.