The Wife's Tale

by Lori Lansens

  Reading Gooch’s instructions, she discovered that the phone needed to be plugged into an adaptable charger and the battery energized for the better part of a day. She plugged the phone in, delighted when it proclaimed, Charging. Gooch would be proud, she thought, and suddenly felt the weight of his disappointment, which she hadn’t noticed at the time. How could she have been so ungrateful? She envied the French singer who regretted nothing. She regretted all.

  The willow shivered a greeting as Mary limped out the seldom-used front door, dressed for work in her rumpled uniform, her hair gathered into a pony tangle, a stack of old towels in the crook of her arm for the wet seat in the truck. She started for the truck but her attention was caught by a flag of fabric flapping on a high tree branch. Gooch’s shirt. Wearing her old winter boots to accommodate the sanitary napkin she’d taped to her bleeding heel, she turned to scan the distant road.

  Inhaling the cold air, Mary wished idly, the way children do, that she could blink and Gooch would be on that road. The wind whipped her face, blowing damp leaves against her legs. She had the sense that she was moving uphill when she was certainly staggering down. She climbed into the pickup truck, a tight, crushing feeling in her chest, blood rushing to her cheeks. She squinted, peering through her vascular tunnels. No lights at the other end. The massive coronary? The timing would be perfect. The triangle could close. Orin. Mr. Barkley. Mary Gooch.

  She wondered if Gooch, wherever he had gone, would return for her funeral. Then she realized, with familiar panic, that she did not have a thing to wear. There was nothing to do but laugh out loud, which she did. Nothing to wear but her navy blue scrubs. An image of a large woman in an oversized casket, hands crossed over her Raymond Russell Drugstore uniform, those hideous silver roots. She hit the button on the radio, and cranked up the volume, encouraged by Aretha Franklin demanding R-E-S-P-E-C-T as she urged the truck into gear and rolled out on the rain-slicked gravel.

  She had underestimated the dampness of the truck’s upholstery, and realized too late that she hadn’t brought enough towels. She planned to make some joke about her wet ass in the staff room, before Ray said something behind her thick, hunched back. Acceptance. Denial. Anger. She couldn’t remember the order of emotions and so felt them all at once. She wondered if people would be able to tell, just by looking, that her husband had not come home.

  In the beginning, Mary’d thought often of the end. She envisioned stepping into the house one evening after work to find a note written in Gooch’s scrawl saying he’d never meant to hurt her, reminding her they’d been too young to get married and should have ended it a long time ago. His clothes would be gone from the closet. His tools from the garage. (She always imagined he’d take his tools with him.) He would have given some thought to how they would divide their debt, and mentioned it in the note. She had worried that Gooch would leave after the second miscarriage, then after the hysterectomy. She was certain he would leave after their only vicious quarrel, when he stood firm in his opposition to adoption, arguing that his crazy, drug-addicted sister had given three babies up, as if that were enough said.

  She had shouted at him, in the only dramatic gesture she could honestly recall, But I want to be a mother! He’d turned on his heel and left, but returned three hours later, catching her with her nose in the Kenmore, tearing the leftover roast beef out of her fingers, kissing her hard on the mouth and guiding her to their bed, where he held her gaze and whispered, before his final thrust, “I love you.”

  Anniversary after anniversary Gooch stayed. After a while she stopped expecting the note. She assumed that, like Orin, Gooch was content to be where he was. Or maybe—like her with her food, Gooch’s father with the booze, Heather with her drugs—the habit of their union had become, over time, an impossible one to break.

  The phrase “neither here nor there” came to mind when Mary considered her present state. She wondered if she might find Irma somewhere in this altered universe as she drove the path to work—the one of least resistance, a shortcut back through the county instead of along the serene river road.

  The maple trees shook their red and yellow leaves over Main Street Leaford. Hooper’s Hardware Store. Sprague’s Sporting Goods. The upscale ladies’ clothing shop owned by the Lavals. Raymond Russell’s drugstore, whose soda counter had been transformed years ago into a more lucrative cosmetics department. In the parking lot behind the drugstore, watching Ray pull up beside her in his shiny Nissan, Mary remembered a time when no one in Baldoon County drove anything but North American. Ray honked the horn impatiently, rolled down the window and barked, “Not there! Go in your regular spot!”

  She cranked down her own window, calling back, “But the Laura Secord’s coming in today!”

  Ray shouted through the wind, “They changed the schedule. It came in last night. When you were off.”

  Threatening sky overhead and the wind bearing down on her from the open sunroof, Mary climbed out of the truck. Laughing richly, she turned to present her wide, soggy behind. “My seat was wet,” she explained. “From the rain.”

  Ray, scowling, barely glanced her way. “Good. How’s Gooch?”

  She paused. “He’s got the pink eye.”

  “And what have you got, Mary?” He pulled open the back door and snapped the toggles on the master switch, igniting the fluorescent tubes above their heads.

  “Watch yourself,” he warned as she followed him inside. Blocking the aisle was a large carton of assorted chocolates on which the supplier had scribbled in thick black marker, For Mary Gooch. Mary shuddered from a pain in her gut. “Will you do something with that before somebody kills themselves?” he demanded.

  Mary bent to pick up the box but they both knew it was only a pretense. Ray sniffed his contempt and lifted it himself, dropping the carton into Mary’s arms without gallantry.

  “Sorry,” Mary said, thinking that if she were Candace, Ray would carry the box the full distance to her car, balanced on his squat little erection.

  The back door to the pharmacy banged shut from the gusting wind as Mary toted the chocolates out to the parking lot. She lifted it into the passenger seat, wincing from the gas in her gut which she tried to, but could not, release. She turned when she heard a car. A sleek gold Cadillac, Gooch’s boss, Theo Fotopolis, at the wheel. She squeezed her buttocks together, afraid to foul the air as he parked in the spot beside her.

  Theo Fotopolis removed his swarthy frame from the car and strode toward Mary in her navy scrubs. “I called the house,” he said, smiling warmly. “Nobody answered so I drove out.”

  She nodded dumbly.

  “You need to fix that window on the back door. You’re letting out the heat.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just put a cardboard for now.” The Greek lifted his arms in a gesture of confusion. “So what the hell, Mary?” She caught her breath. “What happened with Gooch?” he asked. “Mr. Chung called me an hour ago to say my truck is blocking his produce guy.”

  “Mr. Chung?”

  “Gooch left it there, my truck, behind the restaurant.”

  “Left the truck? At Mr. Chung’s?” Mary shook her head, not understanding. “When? Why?”

  “After they closed. Chung said it must have been after midnight. You tell me why.”

  “But Gooch had that delivery in Windsor last night.”

  “He didn’t make it. It was still in the truck. Didn’t he come home last night?”

  Mary paused. “No.”

  “He didn’t call you?”

  Another pause. “No.”

  “It’s none of my business but … does he do this? Does he not come home?”

  “No.”

  “What the hell, then?”

  Mary followed him as he paced a circle. “He just parked the truck and what? Walked somewhere? I don’t understand. Did he eat there?”

  “No one saw him.”

  “Had he been drinking?” she asked.

  “How should I know? Has he been drinkin
g?”

  She took a moment to consider. “No more than usual.”

  The pair stood puzzling as a maelstrom of leaves found their legs. Mary had not considered anything resembling this scenario. The Greek’s coat pocket played a ringtone and he reached inside for his cellphone. Mary held her breath. Gooch?

  The Greek read the name of the caller. He looked at Mary, shaking his head, and returned the phone to his pocket—the call was not from Gooch. “He’s been acting, I don’t know, he’s different since your father died.”

  How had Mary not noticed that?

  “He’s been talking about his family. His old man.”

  “He hated his father.”

  The Greek shrugged. “Should we call the police?”

  “The police?” she asked, alarmed.

  “What if Gooch has been mugged or something?”

  “Mugged? Gooch? Who in their right mind would mug Gooch? And for what? Twenty-seven dollars and some Scratch ‘n’ Wins?”

  “You can’t … Mary, I don’t want to pry into your private business, but is there any place … any place … you can think he might have gone? Does he have a friend?”

  What did he mean? Did he know something? Had he known all along?

  “Did he take anything, Mary? Is anything missing from the house?”

  “No,” she answered uncertainly.

  “Clothes? Suitcase?” His cellphone rang again, and she braced herself. He looked at the number, telling Mary, “My mother’s sick back in Athens. I have to take this.” He turned away for a short, anxious dialogue in Greek before closing the phone. “Have you checked the bank account?”

  “The bank account? Well, no, of course not. Why would I check the bank account?”

  “Never mind. I don’t know.”

  “To see if he’s taken money?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Gooch wouldn’t do that.”

  “I just don’t understand.” The Greek shrugged again, his work, such as it was, done. His cellphone rang again. He took the call, speaking rapidly in his mother tongue. “You tell him to phone me, Mary,” he instructed Mary when he’d finished his call. “Tell him to call me when he gets back. And whatever it is, we’ll work it out.”

  Mary knew she would steal his line when finally she heard from Gooch. Whatever it is, we’ll work it out. Watching the gold Cadillac disappear, she released, with distinct relief, a symphony of wind.

  Ray, standing at the door behind her, hollered, “Nice one, Mary. Class-ee.”

  The decent thing would have been to pretend he hadn’t heard. How long had he been standing there? He held the door open, widening his eyes. “Let’s go. Come on! Inventory time!” He clapped out the syllables. “In-ven-tor-y.”

  Mary found herself paralyzed, keys tingling in her hands, considering the word. Inventory. Yes, that’s what she needed to do. She needed to take stock. Was she getting this right? Gooch had parked the delivery truck behind Chung’s Chinese Restaurant sometime in the night and no one knew where he was? Was this how Irma had felt when life finally stopped making any sense?

  “What are you waiting for, Mary? Let’s go!”

  She looked up at the clouds racing past, the sun exposed in fragile, shifting rays.

  “I’m not kidding,” Ray sneered. “You haven’t been pulling your weight around here, Mary. And I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”

  Acceptance, denial—those could wait. Anger.

  “Get to work, Mary.”

  “Go to hell, Ray.”

  In Ray’s expression Mary saw that she had indeed said the words out loud. Climbing into her truck, stabbing the key in the ignition, thrusting the gear into reverse, she peeled out of the parking lot without checking her rearview mirror, seized by a burning feeling in her chest as she played back the conversation with The Greek. Gooch gone. Parked the delivery truck. Disappeared. On their silver anniversary.

  In all her many years of sleepless nights, Mary had felt the steadfastness of tomorrow implied in the constancy of each broken dawn. Tomorrow, like greeting-card love, was patient and kind. Tomorrow was encouraging, endlessly forgiving. She had not counted on the sudden betrayal of tomorrow, with whom she thought she shared some silent, tacit agreement.

  LIGHTNING

  Had Gooch been there that morning, he would have plunked down across from Mary as he always did, air rushing out of the cracked red vinyl chair, with his nose in the American newspapers that served the area, stopping to read aloud from the Free Press or News while she pretended to listen. Gooch loved America, her politics, sports, musicians, authors, her gift of second chances, and Mary felt some pity for him when he mooned over the U.S. of A. He was in love, and the object of his affections didn’t even know he existed.

  Speeding down the winding river road under a canopy of flapping geese, she felt the burning in her chest ignite and spread. Gooch. Gone. Where? She felt that she was not so much driving as being driven as the black sky rose up in her rearview mirror.

  Gooch would have informed her about the weather watch before falling silent with the sports pages. He knew how his wife loved a good storm. Mary didn’t have time for the newspapers, too intent on her broken promises, too busy with her failures, too preoccupied by her hunger. Life outside of Leaford was not so much irrelevant to her as it was unconsidered. She didn’t view current affairs as essential education—more as a choice, like entertainment. Crisis in the Middle East was a dense novel she chose not to read. Genocide in Africa was unconscionable, unbelievable, a badly written movie that got terrible reviews. Global Warming? Doesn’t sound funny. There’s a whole wide world outside of Leaford. Wasn’t that what Gooch had said?

  At last Mary parked the truck in the lot behind the apartment that overlooked the river in Chatham. So this was what it felt like to master one’s end, she thought. Not a life but a marriage. And not with narcotics but with the truth. She knew what she had to do, but her resolve was not quite firm enough, and like a gun-slinger slugging back that final shot of whisky in a western, she sought courage in Laura Secord.

  A reprieve in the chocolate. Mary might have described tearing open the cardboard as something like rapture, enveloped as she was by the heavenly scent of cocoa, and lifted by a sense of well-being. Breathing deeply, she peeled the plastic wrapping from one box, and another and another, tossing aside the lids, digging at the confections, shovelling two and three at a time into her unhinged mandible. She didn’t care that chocolate squares were spilling onto the seats and floor as she swiped aside the fluted paper cups. Humming, moaning, her pursuit vaguely erotic, That’s enough, she told herself, and then Just one more.

  The last time she had been in the corridors of the tall, slender building, which always smelled faintly of mildew, she had said her final goodbye to Orin. At least that’s what she told herself. In fact he’d been the one to say goodbye, “See you tomorrow, Murray,” to which she’d responded with regrettable harshness, “I picked up a shift, Pop! I’ll be late! So don’t expect a hot sup-per!”—which was not goodbye at all.

  On that night she had stopped, as she always did, at Sylvie Lafleur’s door, not to knock, not to visit, not to thank the older woman for her kindness to Orin, but to listen. To the sound of the television broadcasting Wheel of Fortune or some other game show in which regular folk won a fortune in cash and prizes. The sound of the microwave beeping. Dishes clattering in the sink. The balcony door sliding open when Sylvie went out to smoke. Lonely sounds, comforting and familiar, for in them she heard the music of her own life.

  The grey carpeting in the building’s hallway was soiled with muddy imprints from tramping boots, but apart from that the place seemed unchanged. Mary passed the door of the apartment where her father had lived, and didn’t feel inclined to trace the outline of the number on the wall beside the buzzer as she had thought she might. She could hear the sound of loud music—punk? rap? she wasn’t sure—coming from within. She’d been told that a single mother had taken the place and was l
ikely to be evicted because of her unruly teenaged son.

  She reached Sylvie’s door and stopped. She listened. No sound within. She waited. Pressed the buzzer. Nothing. Then she set to banging on the door, but like she wanted out, not in. The sound of the music ceased in Orin’s old apartment and the door was flung open by a sullen boy with purple hair and kohl-lined eyes. “What?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was looking for Sylvie Lafleur. Do you know her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  The boy shrugged and pulled the door shut. Something feline about his expression reminded Mary of her mother—that catlike smile, wary and remote. Irma had fixed that smile on Jimmy Gooch so many Septembers ago, when he’d announced that he and Mary had decided, given her pregnancy, to be married.

  Irma’d asked him directly, “You’ve considered the alternatives?”

  “There are no alternatives,” Orin had countered, folding his lean arms over his buckled chest.

  There had been a vase of glorious pink roses on Dr. Ruttle’s desk, which Irma would have considered too feminine a touch for a man’s office, if she had been waiting with Mary in the examining room the week before. Mary already suspected that she was pregnant—the cessation of menses, the swollen breasts, the nausea—but when Dr. Ruttle confirmed this, she responded with surprise and confusion. Gooch had, after all, promised that she could not get pregnant if he withdrew before deposit.

  Flushed and sweating in the cool September air, munching the stack of saltines she’d been keeping in her purse to stem her nausea, Mary had walked from Ruttle’s office through the old part of town to the high school, where Gooch was taking a special class to make up for the time and grade point average lost to the accident. He was hoping to start university in January. With the choice of institution now independent of its athletic record, he’d promised Mary that he would enrol in Windsor, which was under an hour away. Mary’d found a nearby night school offering a course in fashion and design, but she hadn’t applied. She was too busy with Gooch and working at the drugstore and keeping house for her parents, and hadn’t got around to it.