Noah's Wife

by Lindsay Starck

  WHEN IT IS TIME for the ceremony, Mrs. McGinn’s husband approaches each candle with an acolyte’s pole, touching his flame to the wick with furious concentration. The candles flicker whenever the townspeople or the animals hurry by, their shadows quivering along the floor, and he must retrace his steps to relight several that go out. Finally the task is complete.

  As the townspeople finish up their preparations and their chores, fluff out their hair, and find their seats in the pews, the shadows of the world retreat to the farthest corners and the church shines with a light that will not be contained. The building is filled to the brim and soon it overflows, light pouring from the windows, rushing through panes of colored glass and washing out across the water in waves of blues and greens and deep, rich reds. They stand together within a painted lighthouse, a multicolored beacon that beams across the town and the houses that lie buried beneath the surface, gleaming even through the rain. She always wins, his wife, he thinks to himself as the music starts up and they all draw breath before song. She was right yet again: in the end, they will all go down dancing.

  thirty-nine

  Noah’s wife has never liked boats.

  As she swings herself on board she feels her stomach flip and fall. While Stan guides the boat out of the harbor she sways at the stern and grips the railings with sweaty palms, staring back at the shore where the figure of her husband is growing smaller by the minute.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” she says.

  “No, you’re not,” says Dr. Yu from behind her. Noah’s wife feels a firm hand come to rest on her shoulder. “You’re going to be fine.”

  The boat tilts and heaves on the water. Noah’s wife digs her heels into the deck and remembers the whale-watching boat in the rain. She remembers the scent and the strong, solid feel of him as the waves tossed her against his chest—Noah, with his powerful arms and his stubborn faith, with a hope so blinding that in spite of all that has happened she still believes that she could see it blazing from miles away, if only she knew where to look.

  As she squints in the direction of the shore, the rest of her little fleet falls into line behind her, their lights beaming forward in the night. She stares at the silhouette of her husband on the dock, keeps her gaze fixed upon him until his shape has been swallowed by the night and there is no sign that he is still standing there at all—only the lights in the harbor flaring softer and fainter until the boats round a bend in the coast and they vanish completely.

  The yacht heaves again and Noah’s wife stumbles. Is Noah angry with her? she wonders. Will he try to follow her? In the sudden darkness she is angry with herself for abandoning him, for heeding the call of that town when her husband didn’t seem to hear it. Must people always belong so wholly to one another? she asks herself bitterly. Must it always be impossible to unknot the threads of so many lives? She remembers the light boxes glowing through windows, the animals kept safe in spare bedrooms and bathtubs, the rain blowing in waves across roofs. What if Noah is right, and they arrive too late? What if, in her instinctive, foolish desire to help, she leads her entire crew to their demise? She cannot bear that kind of responsibility; she never could. She has always been content to leave the responsibility to the Dr. Yus and the Noahs of the world, people strong enough to shoulder it.

  Another rush of panic leaves her feeling dizzy, unable to tell which way is up, whether their boat is being borne across the waves or is hanging suspended above them. The sky and the sea are the same shade of black, so full and so vast that she cannot help but feel smaller than she has ever felt before, cannot do anything but sink slowly to her knees on the deck as the silliness, the futility of the venture knocks the breath right out of her. She had been running on adrenaline, and now even that has left her. There is nothing to do on this boat except wait.

  “Oh God,” she gasps. “This was a mistake.”

  She is not a mover or a shaker. She is not a visionary. What made her believe that she could do this? How many thousands of moments have there been in her life when she was reminded of her own insignificance? It was Noah who was supposed to be saving this town, leading this expedition. How did the task fall to someone like her?

  She buries her head in her arms and takes quick, shallow breaths. Dr. Yu slides down beside her, her back resting against the railing of the stern, one leg crossed over the other.

  “Hey,” says Dr. Yu. “This was not a mistake.” She pauses, watching her father at the helm with Stan and Nancy. He whistles to himself with the map unfolded in his hands, poring over the course that they had charted together and talking to Stan all the while. His stance is wide and secure, the tails of his tuxedo flapping in the wind. The water, dark as stained glass, slides endless toward the horizon. “I’ve never seen you the way I saw you just now,” Dr. Yu tells her best friend. “You were fearless.”

  There is a fine line, Noah’s wife wants to respond, between being a hero and being a fool. It was not that she was fearless; she simply was not thinking. After her encounter with the weatherman, she sprinted down the boardwalk with the dove clasped to her chest, the bird’s wings flapping wildly against her coat. She flew back to the gazebo and called to Noah from behind the homemade curtain while Dr. Yu’s father struggled with his handcuffs in the harsh glare of the floodlight he had placed to one side and Dr. Yu watched helplessly from the audience. The trick did not go as planned. When Dr. Yu’s father finally retreated behind the curtain to ask Noah for the key, with Dr. Yu following quietly in his wake, Noah’s wife was already setting her plan into motion.

  “The road through the hills is flooded,” she was saying to her ghost-faced husband when the two of them appeared. “The only way to reach them is by water.”

  Was it really she who said that? She shakes her head. Remembering it now, the waves rocking her back and forth like a child, she feels that she had been driven by a nameless force, an appeal that she does not understand. She wishes she felt as certain now, on this boat, as she did beneath the slatted roof of that gazebo.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be my job to save them, April,” she says. “Somewhere along the way, something went wrong.”

  Dr. Yu takes her best friend’s hand, exhales slowly, and instructs Noah’s wife to do the same. “Breathe,” she says. “Breathe.” And then, in a tone that is both clinical and kind: “And what was your job supposed to be?”

  Noah’s wife stares at her. Everything she thinks to say in response to the question seems suddenly weak, inadequate. A good spouse, she might have said if the question had been posed to her several months back—a devoted wife, a pillar of support. She loved Noah more than herself, and she would have gladly followed him to the ends of the earth without a second thought. And yet how is she to balance her duty to her husband with her obligation to those she left behind her? Doesn’t she owe something to that town, too?

  Dr. Yu is watching her, reading her mind with a faint smile tugging at her lips. “You know,” she admits, “for a long time I was jealous of Noah. I felt that by loving him, you had less to give to me.” Her words are slow, as if the thought is just dawning on her. “But love is not a loaf of bread. It isn’t something that has to be broken into smaller and smaller pieces if you want to share it. It isn’t finite—in theory, the more people you care about, the more it should multiply. I think both you and I misunderstood that.”

  She takes a deep breath. “This wasn’t supposed to be anything,” she continues. “There isn’t any greater plan or predetermined path. Noah was always wrong about that.” She glances again toward the helm and falls silent for a few seconds. “For years you’ve tried to divide the world into the ordinary and the extraordinary—but those divisions only keep you from doing the hard work yourself. There are no extraordinary people. Only ordinary people who sometimes do extraordinary things.”

  Is this what it feels like to do something extraordinary? wonders Noah’s wife. Is it always this terrifying, this exhausting? Life had been ordered before—she had done h
er best to make it so. She had tried to stow her world away, to keep her happiness contained within a box so that she could hold on to it and keep it safe—but perhaps there is no such safety. Perhaps happiness is always fleeting, and joy can never be contained. How can she return to what she was, how can she pretend that she and Noah are unchanged, that their marriage is as secure and blissful as it ever was, when her old sense of order has been turned upside down and nothing is as stable as it seems?

  “I’m sorry for what I said last night,” she says to Dr. Yu. “I’m sorry if I sounded unsympathetic, or unkind. I was overwhelmed.”

  Dr. Yu lifts one shoulder and lightly lets it fall. Noah’s wife sees the flash of her smile in the darkness. “Of course you were,” she says. “But you don’t have to do this by yourself. I’m here. I think that’s what my father has been trying to say: you’ve been taking care of me for years, and I’ve been trying to take care of him—but you and I, we need to learn when to accept help as well as offer it. Sometimes we’re given more than we can bear alone.”

  For a while they listen to the motor and the waves thudding against the hull. The moon is falling lower in the sky, but something in Noah’s wife is rising as she goes. As their boat slides along below the stars she leans back against the railing and shoots off wordless prayers like signal flares, powerful bursts of hope up into the heavens and out toward a lonely town that is holding its breath and preparing to go under. She pictures the prayers rising from her boat in long and looping threads connecting earth to sky, her boat to the town, other lives to her own. The water is dark and deep but she is being pulled swiftly across it to them, propelled by the power of their connection.

  As the new day dawns, as Stan motors up the coast toward the ominous smudge of a storm on the horizon, the flock of boats soars after them. The sun rises and falls again, and when she is not at the helm Noah’s wife paces the deck or tries to nap on one of the beds in the cabin below. They head east through the hills, careening into the mouth of the river. The sun sets behind the clouds and when the boats finally enter the town a couple of hours later they do so on hushed waves, the motors purring and pouring frothy bubbles into dark water, the lights on the bows beaming a few feeble feet forward. The glow is not strong enough to see anything but the wreckage spinning on the surface—bobbing mailboxes, cast-off umbrellas, the empty sacks of broken sandbags, drifting tree trunks and telephone poles—and the occasional gleaming weather vane that marks the spot where a roof lies dark and buried below the water. It is still raining. Noah’s wife tightens her hood and peers through the downpour. The stars have vanished behind the clouds and the last of her hope splinters and sinks. They have come too late.

  The weatherman had tried to tell her that this town was not her responsibility. He had insisted that she did not owe these people anything, reminded her that he had tried to help them several times already and had only failed in the attempt.

  “How many times,” he had growled, watching her reach for the dove in the trees, “do you have to extend a hand to help people when they refuse to take it?”

  Noah’s wife had turned to him before taking off with the bird. The answer was clear to her, and she did not understand how he could not see it. “Again,” she told him simply. “And again.”

  Suddenly Dr. Yu’s father emits a cry from the stern. It is only then, turning and following the indication of his outstretched arm, that she notices the light in the distance—the spectrum that arcs in reds and yellows and greens and blues from the stained-glass windows to the water. Stan wrenches his wheel to the right and the rest of the fleet follows, battling against the wind while the rain keeps pummeling down.

  forty

  The organ swells as the water rises.

  The townspeople part their lips and begin to sing, the hymnals spread open across their palms. They turn in their pews and stand on their toes, craning their necks to catch sight of the bride as she makes her way down the center aisle to the altar. Even Leesl looks over her shoulder as she plays, her fingers skipping across the keys. Mrs. McGinn’s daughter is wearing a rose-colored dress that one of her neighbors had pulled out of a suitcase. Her arms and neck are weighed down with jewelry that the women in the church had been only too happy to provide. When word had spread about the wedding, they had gone digging through their luggage for bracelets and brooches, had unclasped their own necklaces and hurried over to refasten them around the bride.

  “Something borrowed!” they had each exclaimed, and by the time the preparations were complete, Mrs. McGinn’s daughter was wearing something borrowed from nearly every woman in town. Although everyone knew it was too much—really, the bride looked rather ridiculous in the stacks of sterling silver chains, the strands and strands of pearls, the brooches pinned from her shoulder to her hip—Mrs. McGinn had nodded, satisfied.

  “Yes,” she had said. “That’s what weddings are for.”

  The girl is striding down the aisle on the arm of Mrs. McGinn’s husband while the peacocks stalk regally ahead of them. Mauro grins and waves at the birds from the middle of the pews, where he is bustling between the rows and passing out handfuls of torn-up hay for his neighbors to use as confetti. Mrs. McGinn wipes her eyes with her husband’s handkerchief and shifts on her feet as she waits for the couple to arrive at the steps of the altar.

  The zookeeper, meanwhile, is standing a few feet away from her, his gaze fixed solemnly on Mrs. McGinn’s daughter, holding his breath as he counts the number of steps she has left before she reaches him, wondering (perhaps) if there is any chance that she will turn and run. He needn’t worry, reflects Leesl, still gazing at the bride. The girl’s pace is calm, her face alight and at peace. Her eyes shine at the sight of the zookeeper, his hands folded one over the other, his suit rumpled and worn. She does not seem to notice the animals milling around him—the red fox huddled at his feet, the eagle spreading her wings over the post where she is chained behind him. The sheep are pacing back and forth below the steps, the cattle are lowing, and as they near the altar, the ostrich goes streaking past with her feathers flying. Mauro tosses his basket of confetti in the air and takes off after the bird, having received express instructions from Mrs. McGinn to keep the animals in line during the service. Mrs. McGinn’s daughter releases the arm of her stepfather, surprised by the dry kiss he drops ceremoniously on her cheek. She turns, intending to thank him, but he has already stepped unsentimentally away and the zookeeper is reaching out to draw her toward him. Leesl finishes the hymn and lifts her fingers from the keys. The townspeople assume this is their cue to be seated.

  “Dearly beloved!” announces Mrs. McGinn. “We are gathered here today!”

  She holds the book of liturgy close to her nose, her hand trembling only slightly, while the members of her ragtag congregation lean against the hard backs of their pews and allow the familiar words of this familiar ritual to wash over them, marveling at how long it has been since they set foot in the church. There is a kind of comfort to it, after all, some of them murmur to one another, remembering the days before the rain. But how difficult it had been to think about heaven, how exasperating it had become to climb all the way up here, when every time they looked skyward they got water in their eyes! A few of them, struck with sudden guilt at the memory of their truancy in the days of the former minister, whisper to their neighbors that they might have continued to come, if it were not for the rain. The old man had always been so patient with them. And then before they knew it, he was gone.

  At the thought of the former minister, they all shift uneasily in their seats and try their best to focus on the ceremony. The church is beautiful—they must give Mrs. McGinn credit for that. The portable light boxes have been attached with their batteries to a heavy rope that runs back and forth across the nave, swinging and glowing softly above their heads. The candles are flickering at the altar, and the fake flowers that someone retrieved from a closet downstairs have been propped up near the baptismal font. Even the animals are settling
down, their gleaming eyes on Mauro as he patrols the perimeter with a bucket full of overripe fruit. The pews are polished, the silver is shining, the walls are newly painted. Noah worked hard on this church—they can see that now. And then he left them, too.

  There is so much that the townspeople do not want to think about. They would prefer to avoid dwelling on the real reason they are gathered here today, the real reason why Mrs. McGinn is presiding over them and why the bride and groom must lift their feet from time to time to nudge at the goats and wild birds that are crowding up the steps of the altar. They are trying not to think about what they saw this afternoon as they prepared for the wedding: the water that is beginning to seep under the door and spread across the stone floor of the church. It is clear that the building will not be able to withstand the rain much longer, but what good does it do to dwell on that now? The telephone lines are down and their cars lie buried beneath the water. What can they possibly do but wait?

  Mauro hurries forward with the curtain rings clutched in his fist when Mrs. McGinn calls for the exchange of wedding bands. As he unfolds his fingers he sees the look the bride and groom pass between them and for a moment he feels foolish for standing up there with these cheap pieces of brass, deeply grieved that he has no more to offer them than this. While the zookeeper and Mrs. McGinn’s daughter make their promises to each other, while they vow to be constant until death do them part, a collective shudder runs through the townspeople. How much longer does anybody here have? How many hours until death parts them all?

  Leesl senses a change in the room and whirls around on her bench. Mrs. McGinn feels it, too, and slams her prayer book shut in an effort to draw their attention back to her. A small cloud of dust rises from the pages, the particles sparkling silver in the glow of the candles. The bride and groom consider her in some surprise, waiting to be told that it is time for them to kiss, while the congregants turn long faces her way and huddle down in their pews. The entire building creaks and groans, sways a little in the storm.