The Half Wives

by Stacia Pelletier

  You’re having trouble with your vision. Look at Blue. She’s your sharp relief. Look at her, and then one last time at Henry as, blindly, Marilyn reaches for his hand.

  Henry, your eyes say to him as he takes his wife’s hand. Tell me you’ll miss me. Tell me you’ll not forget me. Even when you’re old. I know you’re already old, but even when you’re very old, far older than you are now.

  He reads your countenance.

  Sweetheart, your eyes go on. One day you will die, and I will not be allowed to be with you. I will not be allowed to sit beside your bed. The angel of propriety will take you.

  Silently he replies:

  Be gentle. Be gentle with your heart. Give thanks for what we were allowed.

  And you: But we were allowed nothing.

  Henry: Not true. We were given everything two people can be given.

  And you: Does Marilyn know she is holding the hand of my husband?

  Henry: She knows.

  You: Why didn’t you ever stay? Why didn’t you ever once stay?

  Henry: I never left. I’m still standing on your front step, Lucy.

  You: What are we going to do now?

  Henry: Pray.

  You: But you don’t pray anymore.

  Henry: Oh, Lucy. I pray every single day.

  You can bear his eyes no longer. Marilyn drops his hand. Blue’s alert but not speaking. You check the cloth tied around her thumb and palm. An endless day of bandaging and unraveling and rebandaging. She does not emit a sound.

  Yours remains an odd power. You have the power to send love away, to close the door. You do not have the power to invite it inside. Is this true? You’re no longer certain. It’s the doctrine you have believed, the creed you have assumed.

  You don’t want the rest of your life to follow the same course.

  Then pray, he silently urges you across the dune. With or without me, pray.

  He will remain standing. For he has two loves and two duties, not one love and one duty. And an afternoon and evening lie ahead, a transit through a starred night, the lamp of the moon above him. He swore an oath stronger than stone, older than the gravel time has ground, dust the current blows into lungs, dust a sick man tries to expel. The remnants of old mountains oxygenate our blood.

  Blue reaches up and strokes your hair. It’s a tender gesture, and unexpected.

  —Mama, she says.—I’m ready to go home.

  You pull her into your arms and cradle her head in your lap. She emits a single sigh. She lies very still.

  —You’re a good girl, you whisper.—You are an absolute wonder.

  She nods. You will not hear her call him Ostrich again.

  —Henry? Marilyn says a final time.—Who are they?

  Count your breath. Count the hairs on Blue’s head. Wait for it.

  —Henry?

  The anguish in her voice is unbearable.

  Leave before he answers her, before she utters his name again. You stand, help Blue to her feet, and lift her into your arms.

  But he’s calling after you, calling without a sound: Don’t make me do this. Please. Lucy. Don’t make me choose.

  I didn’t.

  And then—a word. A name. He utters the name of the child who remains. Every fiber, every living cell in him roars it.

  —Blue.

  It lasts less than a second. But before it shuts off, before he swallows his daughter’s name, his cry begs you to come back, to come home.

  —Papa? Blue shouts, twisting around in your arms.

  Home where? Carry her. Carry her and keep moving.

  Marilyn

  THE WOMAN AND THE GIRL stagger up the dune’s bank. They disappear into whatever crevasse out of which they crawled.

  In the back of the hearse, the stone angel waits.

  The mariners’ burial ground has changed. The light trails off, forgets its last thought. The wind has quieted. Past the lighthouse at Point Bonita, the Marin headlands have dissolved into indigo silhouette. To the east, Lone Mountain absorbs the rays of the sun. Odd Fellows’ Cemetery lies at the foot of that hill. That’s where your son will be moved; east of here. A new direction on the compass.

  Henry has changed too. His mouth forms a word, a single syllable. His eyes contain the dark sea. He watches the dune’s summit, the path the woman and child followed.

  And here you are too, a mother on her son’s birthday, asking him not to leave, not to abandon his parents. Your son is finally giving you an opportunity for regular motherhood, an experience regular mothers can fathom, a loss to which they can relate. To parent is to be left behind in stages. It is not that different from the rest of life, then.

  You will not stay for what has to be done. Henry will stay. Henry will do it.

  You walk to the hearse, pausing to brush sand from the top of a calla lily, still in its clay pot. It’s just as well your husband didn’t get around to planting most of them this year. Nothing lasts in this soil. He can try again next year, start over in a new cemetery. He can create the world anew. He can try. Lob another set of planets into the sorry sky.

  A new garden in a new location.

  Maybe someday.

  You try to think of something to say to him, but nothing’s coming. You straighten and cross the sand toward Ida.

  Henry picks up the shovel. His intake of air is audible as he prepares to speak.

  —Don’t, you say, not looking at him.—Please don’t.

  —You’re leaving?

  —Yes.

  —I thought you were going to stay.

  The shovel is waiting.

  —No, you say.—No, Henry, I’m not staying.

  —Marilyn, he begs.—Please. I cannot do this alone.

  —Yes, you say.—You can.

  The letter was not to you.

  Kerr walks over to him, rests his age-old hand on Henry’s age-old shoulder. Kerr will stay with him. Kerr will become the helpmeet.

  Ida stands by the mare and speaks softly to her. She gives her words to a creature who cares only for tone and lilt and timbre. Her gaze as she contemplates the horse is benevolent. The wind has untied her green ribbons. In the glinting afternoon light, this girl contains the promise of beauty. It’s not here yet. But it’s coming.

  Henry lifts the shovel. It might weigh more than he does. His breath issues forth, hard, deliberate, labored. Every inhalation pierces. His exhalations are jagged, catching in his throat. They hold all he has learned to accept, all he will carry.

  —Henry, Kerr says, and he reaches for the shovel.—Give it to me. I’ll do it.

  —No.

  Your husband’s eyes are bloodshot. He shakes his head. This duty is his. This love was his. He will bear them both.

  The mare shoulders Ida meaningfully, deliberately, the friend Ida always wanted. She lowers her muzzle to Ida’s hair, finds a section of ribbon, and tugs at it. Ida laughs.

  This is the part of the tale that counts, the part that will stay standing five years from now.

  —Let’s go home, you tell her.

  —Home where? Ida asks.

  It’s a good question. You can’t answer yet. But when you offer your hand, she takes it. Together you leave the cemetery.

  3:00 p.m.

  Henry

  IT’S JUST A SMALL WOODEN BOX, covered with earth. Cobwebs dust the hinges. The lid remains fast. The box will not be opened.

  Will you travel to see him at Odd Fellows’? Of course. You’ll visit wherever he goes. But Odd Fellows’ is not the land of the forgotten. You will not dwell just a few blocks away; you will not peer out the window, stretching awake, on a Monday in June and say, It’s damp and drizzling today, therefore Jack is cold. On a Saturday in September, you will not say, The horned larks are out, fighting over the rights to the telephone wire, therefore the sun shines on him. You will not smell the same rain.

  Jack Plageman, when you used to sing him to sleep at night; you would sit in the wicker chair that later moved to its exile on the front porch. Y
our son would collapse against your chest, fists grabbing your shirt, head heavy. You would warble hymns, gazing down at him, and his eyes would fasten to yours, wise, filled with amusement, older than you, older than anyone alive. Joy comes along but once or twice in a life, and when it does, a man must take hold.

  You and Kerr are sliding the coffin into the back of the hearse when you smell the fire. The Chinese have lit another one of their bonfires. Great licking flames push heat in this direction. The fire crackles. You look at the old man with the dying lungs. He looks back at you and waits.

  Every hour, every week that has passed without seeing her, you leak from a thousand holes. But you must not show it. You may not lay a stone at the head of that loss or place a board at the foot. You may not plant a lily in her honor or beg a plot of earth from the mariners.

  —I have to go, you say to Kerr.

  He listens. He has said not a word about all that he has just witnessed.

  —I have to, you repeat.

  He nods, replies:

  —I’ll drive him over to Odd Fellows’, then. We’ll find him a place. I’ll get the work started. Meet you over there in a couple of hours?

  —Yes. A couple of hours.

  Just not yet.

  —Henry? he says.—Safe travels.

  Speaking carefully, he adds:

  —Mrs. Plageman went thataway.

  But you’re not walking thataway. And he knows it. You’re taking the shortcut. The path Lucy used. It’s the same path you taught her to take during the ten years she spent helping you tend the garden, the ten years she spent helping you stay married.

  You clap Kerr on both shoulders.—Thank you.

  He lowers his head.

  You run. You run through dunes. They were the first inhabitants. After them came plants, hardy varieties that stabilized the sand. Lupine, dune tansies, beach sagewort, coyote bush. Later came hunters and gatherers, and later still came settlers, who moved across San Francisco. They leveled hills, carted sand to Yerba Buena Cove and Mission Bay, filled in marshland and estuaries, created dry land out of standing ponds, out of black interdune pools. They cut out one section of the land and grafted it onto another. They became surgeons of earth.

  The wind is working against you. Your legs are working against you too. You’re gasping for air, just like Kerr’s been doing.

  At the Clement Street entrance, you stop, doubled over once more. Never have you run like a fool after someone; never have you ridden your own horse as opposed to being God’s or the devil’s. You should have been a fool a long time ago. You should have been the fool to end all fools, the protester to end all protests.

  What would it have done to Marilyn? It nearly would have killed her. But what has your staying done?

  You peer past the gate. At the far end of the street, sunlight stripes the path. And at the outer reaches of your vision, you see her.

  There’s a horse and gig, and inside, three riders. Blue. And Lucy. A stranger is driving them. A stranger, a man, giving them a lift. Lucy sits on his left with that stiffness she always displays when she’s trying too hard to be at ease with someone.

  You raise your hand. You prepare to shout, to call out. Prepare to chase after them. You can catch up with a horse. You’ve done worse.

  Lucy shifts in her seat. And even this far away, you glimpse it, the way she carries herself, adjusting her position so she’s no longer side by side but halfway facing him. Her body relaxes. Her body orients toward him. You know the posture. She once held herself the same way for you in the front row of the Women’s Memorial Church, the day you stood at the podium and uttered your final sermon.

  The horse veers onto a side street. They’re taking a different route from the one you would have taken. They’re leaving your line of vision. In half a minute, in twenty seconds, she and Blue will be gone.

  Remain where you are standing.

  The day spreads wide and long.

  Blue

  SHE WALKS ME SOUTH, past the Grand Order of This and That, groups with strange names, groups that make sense to people who belong to them. Twice she stops to inspect my hand. The second time, she reaches down and tears off another section of her petticoat. Her hands are steady. She ties the cloth around me where the splinter went in and tells me to keep walking. The way out is downhill.

  —Are you scared? she asks.

  I shake my head. When people ask if you’re scared, it’s a good bet that they’re scared themselves.

  —Because I’ll take care of you. I will.

  Yes. She’ll sure try.

  People in general take care of their own. They guard their families. They lock their doors. They watch over their horses and their vegetables. They feed their children. But wild things need saving too.

  Ma strides with a sure long gait. The sun is hard and hot and shows the lines at her eyes. I don’t mind them. I’d take her face over anyone’s.

  She will not go back to the cemetery.

  My hand hurts more than ever. This sheriff’s costume is a sweat trap. Sand grits the inside of my chaps.

  The snails at the cottage are crossing the floor by now, exploring under the bed, sliding in and out of Ma’s box of letters.

  The sun beats down on her head and neck. It glares at the sand, and the sand glares back.

  —It’s too bright, she says, and darts a glance my way. I keep walking.

  Near the gate exiting onto Clement Street, she stops short. I stop too, behind her, and peek around.

  There’s the street, which climbs uphill to the west, and across the lane sprawls a field, the start of a newcomer’s farm, with two bony cows by the caretaker’s shed, cows studying us with curiosity. And someone is here. Someone is at the cemetery gate, waiting under the wide sky. No one ever waits for us. The wind blows Ma’s hair into her face. She walks forward.

  The man leans against the gate. His hands are tucked into his armpits. His jacket is unbuttoned. His hat rests at an angle. He watches Ma with a good deal of concentration. The only moving part of him is his mouth, chewing a piece of grass.

  Ma stops.

  —Oh, she says, to me, sort of, but also to the air. To the day.

  She takes one more step toward the gate. And stops again.

  She needs to say something. She needs to stop looking like she just swallowed a spoonful of sand.

  So I poke her in the side. Pinch her, actually.

  —Mother, I say.—Wake up.

  She walks forward. She makes her way to the gate, holding my good hand.

  —You, she says to him.—You’re here.

  I stick close to her side. I am the sheriff. I will always be the sheriff where my mother is concerned.

  —Course I’m here, Mr. Stone says.

  He uncrosses his arms and attends to me first. He reaches for my hurt hand. He studies it first one way, then the other. His eyes never stray.

  —You’re a true troublemaker, little one, he says to me.—A genuine outlaw.

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief, then wraps it around the cloth Ma tied on earlier. After knotting it, he studies me with a good deal of seriousness. I am now triple bandaged. Ma keeps looking at that handkerchief.

  He turns and regards her. His smile slowly fades. His eyes rest on her. And for the first time in I can’t remember how long, she stays totally quiet.

  —Ready? he says, and he clears his throat, softer all of a sudden, and gentler.

  Then I see a horse and gig. I was so caught up with everything, I missed the beauteous creature across the street, nosing for greens. J. B. Stone has a chestnut horse with a black mane and a white star on its forehead.

  Ma glances over her shoulder. She looks back at the graveyards. She looks for a long time. No one is coming after her. No one is following her out.

  —Mother, I say.—Turn around.

  A Note About San Francisco History

  On May 22 and May 23, 1897, the San Francisco Call included coverage of three local e
vents deemed newsworthy—a child’s fall through a skylight, a Richmond district neighborhood meeting about the city cemetery, and an orphanage’s grand opening. I borrowed from these three unrelated events to launch the stories of Blue and Lucy, Henry, and Marilyn.

  Historical records also tell us that a man named Thomas Kerr was the foreman of Odd Fellows’ Cemetery. Kerr disrupted the Richmond neighborhood meeting along with several other foremen by shouting “Amen” multiple times. A man named Henry Plagemann (spelled with two n’s) was a locally well-known quartet singer. He is listed as a party to a lawsuit against the city regarding the cemeteries, a case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the city in September 1903. The parties against the cemetery ordinance included the Masonic Cemetery, the Odd Fellows’ Cemetery, and Plagemann, who was reportedly the owner of a lot in one of the graveyards.

  Catherine Wood was the incoming vice president of the board of managers for the Maria Kip Orphanage. Adolph Sutro was a celebrity in his day, the former mayor of San Francisco and a wealthy tycoon and collector. He is best remembered now for the various landmarks and locations in San Francisco that bear his name. His daughter Emma Sutro Merritt was a physician—an unusual accomplishment for a woman in the late nineteenth century.

  The debate over the closure of San Francisco’s city cemetery began well before May 22, 1897, and continued long afterward.

  1908: San Francisco coroner Thomas B. W. Leland, MD, finally initiates a plan to remove the bodies from Golden Gate cemetery (the city cemetery). The Call observes: “It has been more than 10 years since interments were permitted, and the park has suffered from neglect. Fire swept over the place a few years ago and destroyed headstones.”

  1908 to 1921: The Call falls largely silent on the subject of disinterment. When it does report on the city cemetery, attention focuses on the plan for the new Lincoln Park, the new “scenic driveway” for the city, and the new golf course. In 1913 the Call notes that the twenty-five acres in San Mateo purchased by the city to hold the occupants previously relocated from the city cemetery have not been utilized. “Nothing but money has been buried in the property,” the article declares. And seven of the twenty-five acres have been washed away due to erosion.