Noah's Wife

by Lindsay Starck

  • • •

  THE SUN IS BRILLIANT on the day Noah receives the call. His wife is waiting for him to come home, sitting on the gritty concrete of the front stoop with a mug of tea cupped between her palms. Spring is nearly over—the leaves are darker every day, and the air feels dry and taut. She stands when her husband pulls up to the curb, watches his shadow lengthen as he strides across the grass with steps that are swift and certain. She has always loved the way he moves.

  “I’ve been called!” he tells her. “I’ll have a congregation of my own.”

  His skin is flushed with energy. She would not be surprised to hear his beard crackling with excitement.

  “That’s wonderful, Noah!” she exclaims. “Where is the church?”

  The news is unexpected. She had not known that Noah was looking for another church; she had assumed that he would eventually take over the lead position at the church they are attending now. She is further disconcerted when, instead of naming a neighborhood she knows, Noah tells her that the church is a half day’s drive from the city—nestled deep in the northwestern hills.

  “So—we’re leaving?” she asks him.

  “We’re leaving,” he confirms. “We’re expected there by next week.”

  Of course he can tell that she is staggered by the thought of it; she has lived her whole life bound within the borders of this city. Before she can respond, Noah draws her close to reassure her. He kisses the top of her head and leaves his lips there, so that when he speaks his voice is muffled in her hair.

  “I know it’s huge,” he says. “I know it’s unexpected. But I believe that we can really do some good out there. I believe we are needed, that this has happened for a reason.” He kisses her again. “And I promise that no matter what, we’ll be together.”

  She rests her head against the shirt that she had pressed for him that morning, feels his heart beating through the linen, and remembers the whale-watching boat in the rain. He is happy, and so why should she be troubled?

  That evening she goes directly to the public library, determined to learn all there is to know about the place where they are headed. She stays until the building closes, riffling through the card catalog and paging through brittle newssheets, but there is little information to be had. She finds one yellowed profile on the businessman who had established a zoo there and a few articles on the animals they had acquired afterward. Noah’s wife peers for a while at the faded images of exotic birds and wildebeests, but she fails to locate anything written on the town in the past ten years. Even the librarian whose assistance she requests finally has to throw up his hands and admit defeat.

  “We’ve got nothing here,” says the man, unbuttoning and rebuttoning his cardigan several times in evident distress. “It’s as if that place has fallen out of our books.”

  • • •

  SHE REFUSES TO LET this faze her. “That only makes it more of an adventure,” she tells Noah as they are leaving. His body is tense in the driver’s seat, but his face softens when he looks sideways at her.

  “You’re so beautiful, my dear,” he says. He pulls their battered station wagon away from their old life and turns toward the new, and as they head up the highway she rolls down her window and feels the sun on her face, removes the map from the glove box and unfolds it across her lap. She looks for the crease that marks the spot of their new town, its name faded, the print almost too small to read. The drive takes them along the rocky western coast, hugging the sea before turning toward the mountains. There is only one highway that leads into the town, the road as smooth and sloping as a dragon’s back. For most of the way they ride silently, and although it is not like Noah to be silent, his wife is too full of her own thoughts to press him into speech. She tries to focus on where they are headed rather than what they are leaving behind; she deliberately does not think of the photography studio where she has worked her whole adult life, nor of the owner who tried to persuade her not to go. She even turns her thoughts away from her best friend. Noah’s wife has made up her mind to be as delighted as her husband about this sudden change in fortune.

  Indeed, when she first sees the charcoal-colored clouds that have collected over their destination and hears the rain begin to patter against their windshield, she takes it as a good omen. As their car growls into town, she considers the clouds curling thick around chimneys and the jumble of roofs obscured by a beaded veil of rain. Along the main drag she can make out the hazy shapes of the inhabitants ambling along sidewalks, umbrellas blooming in vivid bouquets wherever they stop to meet on corners. They turn to watch the car go by, their faces sullen. She squeezes Noah’s hand and tries to smile at them. She continues smiling as the car chugs down the road and up the driveway of the empty parsonage, a rambling, gray-blue house with shuttered windows and three slightly tilting stories. She smiles even while they are unloading boxes from the back and setting them down in a dining room that smells of mildew, the dust rolling in soft whorls across the groaning hardwood floors. She does her best to smile the whole evening through, and only dares to let her face relax when the lights are out and she can hear Noah snoring beside her in an unfamiliar bed. The rain taps all night on the shingles above her, eventually lulling her to sleep. It is still raining when she wakes.

  two

  Two days before Noah was called to this church, the previous minister walked into the river and didn’t walk out again.

  When Noah arrives to take his place, the town is still debating the nature of his death. It is true, people say to one another, that after so many months of rain, the river has become higher and faster than it was before; and yet it has not become so high or so fast that anyone would have expected death by drowning to be a very real possibility. This is a town of strong swimmers.

  Then again, as Mrs. McGinn observes in hushed tones to her daughter on the morning of the burial, one can die just as well in two feet of water as in twenty. It’s a fairly simple matter once a person sets his troubled mind to it, and everyone knows that that’s exactly what the poor man was. Troubled.

  God rest his soul.

  It is a blessing, at least, to have the town cemetery on the high ground behind the church. Most of the townspeople grumble about having to slosh up the muddy hill in their worn-out galoshes, but Mrs. McGinn is glad to do it because she is determined to get a better look at the new minister and his wife. She only caught a glimpse of them through the foggy windows of their car as they rolled through town last night. The woman looked beautiful, Mrs. McGinn admits to herself, but she is hoping that the beauty of the minister’s wife will turn out to be something like the beauty of a fine impressionist painting: lovely in certain lights and best when seen from farther away, but a muddle of colors and textures when one stands with one’s nose right up against the gilded frame. It has been years since Mrs. McGinn was in an art museum—whatever museums this town once had have long since closed up shop and taken their objects elsewhere—but there was once a time when she was quite interested in art and she likes to think she still knows a thing or two about beauty.

  She would not begrudge anyone a beautiful wife, but in truth she would prefer for the woman to be a little plainer so that her own daughter would look a little better in comparison. Mrs. McGinn is not worried about herself; when it comes to good looks she has certainly had her day, and she is reassured by the belief that if she were twenty years younger she would not pale in comparison. Indeed, when she glances in her most trustworthy mirror at certain times of day, and especially when she applies a touch of lipstick before doing so, she doesn’t believe that she pales so much even now.

  “It’s not a competition, Evelyn,” her husband reminds her gruffly when he sees her craning her neck for a better view at the cemetery.

  Mrs. McGinn sees the flicker of his irritation (she is always on the watch for it), and so she falls back on her heels and lowers her chin. “I know that it’s not a competition, Jackson,” she retorts. “But I feel as though they’re looking down
on us.”

  “That’s because we’re all standing on a goddamn hill,” he snaps. He waves his hand at the minister and his wife, both wrapped like seals in slick black raincoats while the steeple looms pale and solemn behind them. The cemetery runs down on an incline from the backyard of the church, weeds creeping across the graves, puddles collecting at the bases of the tombstones. The minister and his wife are standing closest to the church’s whitewashed siding while the mourners range unevenly across the drowning grass below them, all sheltered beneath the nylon canopies of their umbrellas. Mrs. McGinn swivels her head to count her neighbors, surprised to find that nearly everyone is here. She nods at Mauro, the silver-haired Italian who owns the general store, and watches Leesl, the former music teacher, pace the ground beside her father’s grave. Mrs. McGinn’s daughter is leaning back against her fiancé, wrapped up in his arms. Mrs. McGinn shakes her head and turns away.

  “The whole town turned out for this,” she mutters to her husband.

  He shrugs, glowers at his neighbors. “No one cared enough to check up on the old man when he was still alive,” he replies, “and now that the guy’s gone, suddenly everyone feels sorry enough to make the trek up here and stand in the goddamn rain and hear the new one tell us that all is forgotten, our sins are forgiven.” He spits into the grass to show his wife exactly how he feels about this.

  “What sins, Jackson?” she demands, her whisper fierce. “What do you mean by that?”

  Her husband spits again. “Why would a minister walk into a river, Evelyn? What could have driven him to it?” He starts to say something else, but Mrs. McGinn snaps at him to keep quiet and tells him she doesn’t want to hear it.

  The truth is that she has, in fact, already heard it. For the past few days her diner has been buzzing with speculation over the death of the minister. Was it an accident or not? Did anyone know anything about the old man—what he was thinking, how he was doing? Had anyone seen him since they stopped attending services at the church all those months—years?—ago? Was he happy or not? And if not, why not? Many of the townspeople admitted that they, too, were largely unhappy in this place. They looked out the windows of the diner at the river, the water shoving at the crumbling banks, and a collective shudder ran through them.

  Mrs. McGinn is grateful that the new minister begins to speak right then. She peers at the woman standing behind him, trying to get a better glimpse of her face.

  “Good morning, everyone,” says the new minister. His voice is booming, his stance wide and self-assured. “My name is Noah. I haven’t met most of you yet, but I’m glad to be here with you. Of course I wish that I had been called to this town under happier circumstances, but I am certain that we will make it through this difficult time together. None of us is ever given a heavier burden than he can bear.”

  He has a speech prepared. With the calm and practiced grace of his vocation, he lays out his plans for the church and the congregation, his hands fluttering like swallows and his face shining as radiantly as the future he describes for them. Grace and faith; light and life. Mrs. McGinn dismisses these words as they reach her and waits for Noah to say something more concrete, something more helpful. She waits for him to acknowledge the rain, at least, or to say something about the nature of his predecessor’s death. Her neighbors wait, too—she can see them all leaning slightly forward, their gazes flicking between the ruddy face of the new minister and the open grave of the old one. They look as disappointed as Mrs. McGinn feels when Noah wraps up his speech, shivers a little in his damp clothing, and steps away from the headstone while the grizzled undertaker and his son shovel dirt over the coffin.

  “That was it?” exclaims Mrs. McGinn. “That’s the extent of his advice to us—hope and pray? For God’s sake!” Before her husband can growl at her to stop, she has stormed her way through the throng of colored umbrellas and come to a halt in front of the minister and his wife.

  “Noah,” she says, jamming her hand into his. “Evelyn McGinn.”

  “Evelyn!” repeats the minister with evident delight, beaming at her. “Yes, I’ve heard all about you! People say that you’re the one who keeps this place afloat. Is that true?”

  Mrs. McGinn leans backward, disarmed. Noah’s grin is more engaging than she had anticipated. “Well,” she says, “I do my best.”

  Noah nods, looking past her to the jumble of gray buildings that squat along the river below them. A drop of rain falls on his nose, and he wipes it away with impatience. “What a charming little town!” he exclaims. His stilted enthusiasm reminds Mrs. McGinn of a candidate for public office. “The downtown looks exactly like a postcard. When you have some free time, I’d love to have you tell me more about it.”

  At this, Mrs. McGinn snorts. No one cares about this place anymore. The only reason Noah is expressing interest is because he feels that, after only two days, he already has a claim on it—but this is her town; not his. Mrs. McGinn is the one who has spent a lifetime here. It is she who was elected to head the town council (the first woman, by the way, to ever serve on it), and she will not have her authority undermined by this man’s ignorant enthusiasm.

  “Really, Minister?” she says, her voice sharp and unforgiving. “Well, what would you like to know?”

  Surprised by her tone, Noah doesn’t answer immediately. In the silence that follows, his wife takes a step forward. Mrs. McGinn’s eyes rake across the woman’s paperlike skin, coming to rest upon her steady, slate-gray gaze. She is good-looking, but in an unremarkable way. Average nose, average ears. The only feature that might stand out in a crowd is her hair: glossy waves the color of ravens’ wings. At the sight of it Mrs. McGinn reaches up to pat her own carroty curls, piled high into a loose bun on the top of her head. She dyes her hair herself at least once a month but even so, she still finds fresh silver strands every few days and then she yanks them out, unhappily, clamping her mouth shut to keep from crying out. No one ever said that beauty would be painless, her mother had told her on her sixteenth birthday as she unwrapped her first pair of high heels. The same thing goes for love and for marriage, Mrs. McGinn has told her own daughter time and again when the girl walks into a room to find her sweeping up a heap of broken china. No one ever said that love would be painless.

  Noah’s wife makes a broad and graceful gesture with her arm that seems to take in the clouds, the umbrellas, mud, and the river in the distance all at once. “Is it true what we’ve heard about the weather here?” she asks Mrs. McGinn. “Has it really been raining for so long?”

  Mrs. McGinn hates this question. “Yes,” she says curtly. “It’s been raining a long time.”

  Long enough to drive the mayor away, after all; long enough to lose most of the old police force, many of the shopkeepers, the artists, the businessmen. The sheriff has kept his office in the decaying town hall and there are still two firefighters with little else to do but play poker in the empty firehouse, since most everything is too damp to burn. A few years back they were so short on teachers that they started busing children to a school a few districts over. It is Mrs. McGinn’s husband, in fact, who drives the bus there and back on muddy roads, one trip in the morning and one in the afternoon, an hour each way. He doesn’t like the job, of course; he claims that the crying of the children nearly drives him off the road.

  Worst of all was the effect of the rain on the zoo. That zoo had been what placed them on the map; it was what made them famous, what provided their income, what gave this town its character. There are exotic animal tracks in the sidewalk, for goodness’ sake; there are statues of polar bears and elephants at intersections. The walls of the diner are crowded with wildlife paintings, and most of the townspeople sport zoo paraphernalia on their key chains, Tshirts, and jackets. In the old glory days, items such as these would fly off the shelves faster than Mauro could stock them, but lately he has been giving them away for free. The townspeople used to find it hard to believe that what had started out as a two-goat operation in a businessman’s ba
ckyard had grown into a two-hundred-animal operation that drew high-rolling tourists all the way from the other side of the country. Now they find it hard to believe that the institution that allowed them to flourish for so long has wilted and waned to such an extent that no one but the zookeeper and his fiancée will set foot in it. They shake their heads, disgusted by their situation. And what is there to do about it? they would like to know. Nobody goes to the zoo in the rain.

  “Is there any explanation for the weather?” Noah wants to know, taking over from his wife. “It’s amazing that so many of you are still here, with conditions like these.”

  Mrs. McGinn frowns, and her entire face puckers. “Well, there used to be a lot more of us,” she says finally. “This place is nothing like it once was.”

  It hurts her to admit this, as it always does. Mrs. McGinn understands perfectly well that this town has its problems, and that these days it is difficult to scratch out a life for oneself here. She knows that when her daughter’s classmates and friends decided to establish careers for themselves in teaching, in business, in law, they looked elsewhere because this town had no real future for businesses more ambitious than her own diner, Mauro’s general store, the dwindling demands on the single pharmacy, the department store, or anything other than the very bare essentials required for life in a small gray ghost town. She suspects that even her own daughter is champing at the bit to leave this place, and she is well aware that once the girl is gone, there will be little reason for her to return. Mrs. McGinn is a woman of strong convictions, but she is no fool. She knows how the world works.

  “What we need from you, Minister, is some kind of action,” she says now to Noah. “The rain has kept us too low for too long. We don’t know why it’s still raining, and we don’t know why Reverend Matthews did what he did. People are looking for answers, and now that you’re here, they’ll be looking to you. I hope you won’t let us down.”