The Half Wives

by Stacia Pelletier

  Kerr, humbled, says:

  —We’ll find a place for him at Odd Fellows’. I can promise you, Mrs. Plageman. It’s not this view. But it’s still the Richmond. Still the Outside Lands.

  —You think that helps me?

  A clogged gasp, a half laugh, escapes her. She turns her back to you, bows her head, and prays silently. Her Catholic sensibilities are rising up, demanding their place, telling her the only thing left to do is pray to a woman, to a mother. There are no other gods left for her.

  You shouldn’t have told her. But what you said was so much less than what you could have said, what you ought to say, what you are overdue to tell her. What you said was hardly anything, if one takes the long view.

  That might be the only view you can bear.

  The orphan has crossed the gate and stands ready to lend her aid, a sentry at her post. She catches your eye and briefly lifts her chin. She will not reside long at Maria Kip. That much you can ascertain without her uttering a word. This girl will take the next step of life on her own.

  Marilyn twists around so she faces you. She raises her eyes to yours and nods slightly. She’ll allow you to gather her in now, for the briefest of moments; she’ll permit you to enfold her in the tree of mourning—the union she knows.

  She’s stiff; her joints are showing signs of arthritis. You tuck a stray hair behind her ear. She’s starting to silver at the temples. Paupers’ graves surround you both.

  —Marilyn.

  —Don’t, she whispers, and closes her eyes.—Henry. Just don’t.

  There are children laid to rest all over this cemetery. She could be kneeling on one now.

  —Sweetheart.

  You fold her into your arms; slowly her body slackens against your chest.

  —It’s time.

  —I know what time it is, she cries.

  —Let’s go wish him happy birthday, you say, embracing her as tight as you can, as close as your lives will allow. Kerr looks away as she forcefully sinks against you. She sobs. Her head crushes your shoulder. This is parenthood pared to the bone.

  —Maybe he’ll be relieved, you say into her ear.—Maybe we’ve started to embarrass him, living so close, living just up the street.

  You kiss her hair, her forehead. You taste old grains, filaments from the sea, and briefly the vault of memory opens: Marilyn, young, in her yellow dressing gown, hair falling to her waist, smiling as you entered the nursery, her finger to her mouth signaling shh as she rocked your newborn son in her arms.

  —He would be turning sixteen, you whisper.—And you know what that means.

  —What? she whispers back, barely audible.

  —It’s the age when a young man wants to see less of his parents.

  And then you can’t say any more. Your lips brush the top of her head.

  Kerr’s unable to keep his pipe lit, it seems; his shoulders shake. He tries one match, tries another, keeps his back to you both.

  —You were supposed to take care of him, Marilyn says, her voice muffled.—You were supposed to protect him.

  —I know, you say.—I will carry it always.

  You take her arm, rise, and help her to the hearse.

  2:30 p.m.

  Blue

  WHAT SHE SAID DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. What would half a brother look like?

  —Wait for me, I tell her.—I need to use the toilet.

  I don’t have to go too badly. But I need to get away from her. I need to think.

  —Use the bushes. Ma tersely points.—Watch out for poison oak. And hurry.

  I hike up a hill of sand. Scrub brush and sage cover these dunes. I choose my hiding place, squat in a thicket, and pull down my cowboy trousers. The branches scratch my hindquarters.

  While I’m relieving myself, I look up. Past the sage, the graves spread wide. From here I can see clear to the Golden Gate. The water is emerald and swirls. The moving air fills my lungs. It tickles the weeds over the graves. A gull swoops low over the headstones. Far away, almost falling off the horizon, a steamer with a black-and-white smokestack churns toward its landing.

  I love this place. I will love it my whole life.

  And there he is. Finally! I see him. There is my papa.

  I stand and pull up my trousers. Pushing past the sage, I stare as hard as I can. Yes. That’s him. That’s definitely Pa. Though he’s far away, and he looks thinner and more rumpled than the last time I saw him.

  He’s stepping down from a black coach, the same coach I saw back at his store. He stands with his hands behind his back. The graves around him are tacked with sailcloth. The canvases snap and flap. Those must be the mariners he told me about. Seamen buried under blankets of sails.

  He walks around to the rear of the coach and pulls something out of the back. It’s a shovel. He’s about to dig in the sand. What else would those tools be for? Wait. He’s not alone. I should have seen that before. Three people are climbing down from the coach after him. They had only one horse to pull them, one old gray mare, the same one I wanted to pet earlier. She’s too old to pull three people at once.

  Pa crosses over to a stone angel that’s standing in the sand. He crouches beside the angel and looks at it. Probably he wishes the other people around him would go away. He and I have something in common today. We’d rather be left alone.

  An old man with a scraggly beard has stepped down from the coach and lights a pipe. A tall girl in a uniform steps down after him. She sticks close to the mare. She speaks in her ear. The mare lowers her head to listen. The girl is older than me. Whatever she’s saying is for the horse and only the horse, whose head drops low. She must be thirsty. The girl better water her.

  The last passenger is a woman. She’s the same lady who rode the streetcar on the way home. So is the girl, now that I see the two of them together. The woman takes the longest to leave the coach. She has black hair. She’s pretty. She’s presentable. She looks like a newspaper advertisement for a tonic promising a women’s cure.

  She faces the strait. She stands apart from the others and stares very hard at that water. Her hair must be so long. Ma’s never grows that long.

  Pa scoops up sand. He’s crouching down. He weighs and tests the sand. He says something, but the woman doesn’t say anything back. He’s talking to himself now.

  He places a hand on the head of the angel. He tries to lift the angel. It must be heavy. It doesn’t want to be pried up. I bet it weighs more than the pretend statues in Mr. Sutro’s gardens. This one’s real.

  He tries again. He tips up one corner, but the other side stays in the sand.

  The old man with the beard walks over to him. Together they bring up the angel. They tear the stone up from the ground, up from clods of sand and dirt. They’re making a mess. Ma would have a fit if I were doing that. Pa carries the statue over to the hearse. He comes back and his hands are empty.

  I look behind me. Ma’s twenty feet down the dune’s other side; she’s still waiting for me to finish my business. Half of me wants to return to her. The other half of me wants to help Pa. Which half should win? Pa needs me more. But Ma has the temper.

  Pa’s in trouble. How, I can’t quite figure. I need more information. That’s the answer. Now’s the time. The sheriff is on the move.

  Pushing aside the branches, I call for him through the brush.

  —Ostrich?

  The clouds have rolled back, and so has the fog; the sun clobbers my eyes.

  —Ostrich!

  Another gull beats its wings and flies up, annoyed with me, startled high. A garter snake shoots through the bushes. Every living creature on this dune hears me. Everyone except my father.

  But my mother hears. My mother is coming.

  She breathes up behind me. She slips and crashes through the brush. She pushes through the thicket. Now she can see what I see. She can see all the way to the strait. And to Pa.

  I skip toward the far side of the dune. Away from her, toward him. Toward the clearing.

  —No,
Ma breathes.—No. No. No. We’re too late.

  She moves. She sprints. She’s fast. Faster than she’s been all day. Her talons reach out and grab my neck. She’s dragging me back, jerking me away from that side of the dune. She’s not about to free me. Not about to let me take a single step in Pa’s direction. Her nails sink deep into my arm.

  —No, she says again.—Don’t. Blue. Don’t do this.

  —Let go!

  I reel backward. She’s jabbing at me on all sides, pecking at me until I lose my footing. She snatches me from behind. She’s trying to hide me away. To take me back to her side of the dune.

  —No, she says again.—No. We’re too late. She’s already here. I cannot do this.

  But she already did. Didn’t she? Yes. She started this stone rolling. She pushed it down the hill. She wanted to see him. She wanted him to see me. She wanted us to be together again. All three.

  —Let me go, I bellow, pushing her away.—Ostrich!

  I break for the clearing.

  Lucy

  STOP RUNNING, CHILD. Stop racing toward the open. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the open is something you deserve.

  Sailcloth ripples over the headstones. She flies toward the mariners, her spurs sparkling in the sunlight. She darts around scrub brush. She dodges sage. That cowboy hat keeps falling into her eyes. It’ll be her downfall.

  And there he is. There is your Henry. And there is Marilyn.

  You’re too late. What were you thinking? How long did you think you could let the world slide?

  Marilyn landed here first, with history behind her. History filled her sails. And you arrived second. You showed up too early for your life and too late for Henry’s.

  He stands before Jack’s grave. Marilyn observes the moving waters of the strait. He grips a shovel. He is gardener, caretaker, gravedigger. She is overseer, landlord, owner. She owns him. She owns this day; she is legitimate. She wears his name by law, by sacrament. She has earned her place at his side through fidelity, childbirth, a quantity of sorrow. But so have you.

  Two truths can subsist together. Two loves can too. Your daughter will succeed where you have failed. She will reach the clearing.

  Blue doesn’t need you to tell her the truth, to spring some revelation on her. She is the truth. She is the story her parents don’t want to tell. She is your second person.

  Marilyn faces the water. The curve of her waist and hips, the hint of sway beneath her gown, compels your stare, your admiration, this grand dame who daily claims Henry, who nightly takes him for granted, who listens to him scrubbing his teeth before he sleeps. She is beautiful. Not even for her age. Just beautiful. She moves modestly, with grace; she conserves her movements. She’s not the kind of woman who trips over a Raggedy Ann doll while reaching for a whiskey bottle. Not the kind of woman who takes a ten-year detour into another woman’s husband.

  Blue, throwing a glance back at you, sticks out her tongue. She’s taunting you now; she’s slippery, faster than you, even with her bandages, and she knows it. You race forward, grab for her collar, trying to avoid her ear, trying to avoid inflicting more damage.

  —Get back here, you snap.

  She sprints away. You chase again, hitching up your skirts.

  When you and Henry disagree, Marilyn catches the tail end of your quarrel. She receives your ambivalence, your loneliness, filtered by way of Henry. She hands them back to you through him as resignation, detachment—all that goes unspoken. Henry is the carrier, the broker, the go-between. The real marriage, the real affair in this tale, is between you and Marilyn.

  Only you’re not dueling over a man. Henry is the stand-in. For what?

  Autonomy. A key to unlock the right door.

  Marilyn will notice Blue any moment. All she needs to do is turn.

  Knowing what you do now, would you do it all over again? No. But you still love him.

  Henry’s within range, a straight shot down a slope of pocked sand.

  —Ostrich!

  He doesn’t hear his child. He hears the wind. He hears the day.

  Marilyn paces, her eyes fixed on the waters. Henry gestures, calls out something to her, you can’t hear what. She doesn’t respond. She won the right to ignore him. She inherited that right when Jack passed. And you solidified it. You polished and hung that right for her, turned it into a looking glass.

  You seize Blue’s sleeve. Her cowboy hat slides off yet again. Let it go. She heaves away, pulling out of your arms a final time, darts across the dune’s flank. She flings out her arms as Pacific loons waltz overhead on their way to the strait. You feign a left and lunge right. At last you have her. Barely, but you have her.

  She writhes and screws up her face; you have her by the arms.

  —Let me go, she says, seething.—I want Ostrich.

  Yes, child, this is a tale of birds. Blue is a sparrow. Marilyn is a crow, a raven. Glittering, black-haired, she will never relinquish him.

  And you; what are you? That juvenile horned owl back on the taxidermist’s table, molting as if its life depended on it.

  He hears Blue calling. He looks up; the shovel slips from his hand. He loosens his tie. He’s haggard, out of breath. His neck’s damp, no doubt, where he always used to sweat, right there, that smoothness at the base of his throat. That hollow in the flesh.

  Dig your nails into Blue’s shoulders. Stop her from feeling. Every woman has to learn that skill some time. Does Henry love his daughter? Yes. Of course. But love can take one hundred different forms. Blue rescuing her snails is love. J. B. Stone paying for your hospital bill might be love also. A different form. But still. Something shines through.

  Blue escapes your arms a final time. She surges free.

  —You wanted to take me to the cemetery, she says, black with fury.

  —Blue—

  —You wanted me to see my father. And now I will see him. You are not allowed to change the plan midcourse!

  She dashes for the open, flies down the dune’s rim, between hollows of sand. She spouts joy, a plume of it.

  —Ostrich! she calls.—Ostrich, wait till you hear what happened to me. I fell into a well and it tried to swallow me!

  He turns toward her. At last he sees. She will tell him everything he has missed. She’s fifty yards out when she stumbles.

  Blue

  I’M CLOSING IN ON PA when a broken fence post trips me. It’s hiding in the sand and shows up out of nowhere. I’m running down the dune so fast I can’t avoid it, a wooden spike with nasty splinters. I fly forward. Most of me makes a safe landing in sand, but my hand smacks the top of the post. Two splinters spear the skin between my thumb and my first finger.

  One of the splinters lodges so deep, the sting runs all the way up my arm.

  I pull my hand off the wood. First nothing happens. Then a white patch appears in my skin. Blood wells up. It dribbles down my hand. It trickles. It will soak my sleeve.

  And Pa sees me. At last! He goes absolutely still. The woman beside him sees me too. She covers her mouth.

  The girl standing by the old horse watches also. I look up at her. She’s pretty far away, and I’m still on my hands and knees. She looks steady and thoughtful. She looks like the kind of girl who would not cause things to get any worse.

  But now my mother is upon me.

  Lucy

  HE’S FIFTY YARDS AWAY. He takes two forward steps before he stops; he’s standing over Jack’s grave. He looks at Marilyn, a few feet to his right, and then he looks down. His feet have planted themselves wide, over his son. And your feet will plant themselves wide too, over your daughter, your child who has fallen but will get up; your Blue, who possesses the full sum of courage that this life is going to require of her.

  Henry seizes your gaze. Yes, we are both parents, he seems to be saying; yes, there is this much desert between us.

  His hand lifts in greeting. His hand refuses to stay at his side. It’s been too long.

  Do you still miss me?

  E
very goddamn centimeter.

  Happy birthday, Jack Plageman. You can count the years right along with Marilyn and Henry. Across the expanse of sand, you stand and face this campus of dead seamen. Sunlight hollows Henry’s countenance. Behind him lie the churning waters of the strait. Beside him, Marilyn looks straight at you, a question on her lips, a question she will ask.

  —Henry? she says.—Who is that?

  He bows his head.

  Here you are, the last ten years in your throat. And here is Henry and his peacefulness, his calm, his hope—yes, even here, in this awful moment, because finally, everyone he loves is with him at the same time. He is not missing anyone. Jack is here. You are here. Blue is too. Blue, though bruised, is pushing up from the sand, as she prepares to address you, and her father, the both of you, why and how come stamped across her face. Or are those your questions? You taught them to her. And Marilyn is here too. For the first time, Henry Plageman is not missing part of his life. He is not split in two.

  There you are. He lifts his head. Across the divide, his eyes lock with yours. There you are. I was hoping you’d come.

  I’m here.

  He smiles.

  —Henry? Marilyn says.

  He speaks not a word. You’ll speak in his stead as you stanch the blood flowing from Blue’s hand. You’ll speak by breathing. That’s the only voice a person has some days. You reach for your petticoat, tear a corner off, ripping the cloth with your teeth, listening to Blue sob once and no more than once, listening to the sound of her becoming an adult; you tear off a strip of that cloth and wrap it around her hand, tight. Breathing is enough; your individual inhalations and exhalations will reach him. They are the code, the transmittal across the wire. And Marilyn has seen you; Marilyn has asked who you are. You cannot allow her to find out; you cannot allow her to be hurt. But she is already hurt. From what, then, are you protecting her? You’re not capable of changing her life any more than it has already been changed. Marilyn’s life right now is her life with you in it.