Black Widows

by Cate Quinn

  That’s how I feel at the moment. I’m staying inside that one box because if I peek out, all the walls will fall down.

  I felt that way the day I fought with Emily. She’d found my documents. I was so mad, I honestly can’t even say for sure what happened.

  Truth is, since Emily discovered those papers, I’m remembering things. Some of those old boxes are opening.

  Compartmentalize.

  You learned to compartmentalize, Rachel. It kept you safe.

  When we got to the little house, I got right on with taking care of everyone and didn’t allow any stray thoughts to get in the way. Feels funny to be back on a crowded-in street again, being looked in on. Out in the desert, there’s so much land and mountain, no one knows you’re there.

  There was a little to-do over who got which bedroom. Tina and I both wanted the one nearest the front door. Emily wanted the room at the back, which had a strange smell to it. It was only afterward I realized she got the one with a big window that faces directly onto the street.

  It’s a nice little place even so, not Tina’s style, I guess—a little too regular for her. One of the things we butted heads over is how she would try and impose her wild decor. She dressed pretty wild too. Though Blake seemed to like that.

  A memory floats back.

  The black dress with an ivy-leaf-shaped neckline I bought half price on the dollar sale at Macy’s. Blake had sorta pursed his lips and stared. “Can you return it?”

  “Um…” Tears welled in my eyes. Blake stepped forward and took me in his arms.

  “Hey, don’t cry.” He wiped the tears. “Why don’t you pick yourself up a pair of new jeans? You always look great in those.”

  A few weeks later, Blake took Emily and me to meet Tina. We were on our best behavior, trying to be friendly. In those early days, I think Emily hoped they would be friends. That was before we both realized that Tina’s only friend is Tina.

  Blake took us all to Kirker’s Diner on the outside of town. He doesn’t like fancy places. Always said what he liked best about me was that I was a real simple gal. Homely. I had never even been to a restaurant before I met Blake.

  Tina had arrived with a whole lotta makeup and this inappropriate tight black ensemble, especially for a single lady out with a married man.

  It took me until the menus were handed around to realize—it was the same ivy-leaf patterned neckline as on the dress I had returned, though I have to admit it looked very different on Tina. Exact identical dress though. No mistaking.

  “Nice outfit,” I said, more coldly than I meant to, when Blake excused himself to go to the bathroom.

  “Yeah.” She smoothed the front, looking down at where her cleavage was pushing up for attention. “I was so worked up ’bout what to wear for this dinner that Blake bought me this. You know how he is about modesty.”

  “Oh my heck, you think that is modest?” It came out far quicker and more spiteful than I ever intended it. Even Emily winced. I saw Tina take stock, like she was drawing battle lines.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Well, I guess Nevada is a lot different from Utah.”

  She looked pointedly at her menu.

  “You should try the meat loaf or the chicken fried steak,” I said, trying to sound friendly.

  Blake returned, sliding in between us, but he was only looking at Tina.

  “Everything okay?” His eyes were searching her face, concerned. I felt a stab of pain. It had been a long time since he’d looked out for my feelings like that.

  “I was recommending the chicken fried steak.” My voice came all bright and brittle. “It’s Blake’s favorite, isn’t it, honey?”

  “Is it deep-fried?” asked Tina. “That’s bad for cholesterol.”

  “Tina’s not from Utah,” said Blake, not taking his eyes from her. “She’s a little more sophisticated than you, Rachel, but don’t worry. She’ll learn you.”

  Tina had ordered a Cobb salad.

  I hated her then.

  You know, I can’t well recall what we did for her wedding. I do remember there was a stack of cupcakes. Usually I would have thought that was for cute, as the saying goes in Utah, but the frosting was so bright, I thought it was just the kind of tacky thing she would do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Emily, Sister-Wife

  When Officer Brewer said we were going home, I had this fantasy. I’d come out the front, and my mom would be there, waiting for me. I’d run into her arms, and she’d say, “I forgive you.”

  She wasn’t there, of course. The police said they hadn’t been able to find her. Like maybe she’d moved. I knew that wasn’t true. They were just being nice.

  In the days when we had a phone line, I’d call my mom, like, ten times. I think she knew it was me. I wouldn’t say anything. Just ring, ring. Hear her voice. At first, she’d demand who was calling. Then I took to breathing real quiet, hoping she’d know it was me. After that, she’d listen for a time. Maybe a few minutes. Then she’d whisper “God forgive you” and replace the receiver very gently, like a blessing.

  I did that for a few months, right after my wedding, but when Blake saw the bill, he had the phone disconnected. Sometimes I’d steal coins from Rachel’s pocketbook and sneak to a pay phone if we were making a trip to the store. I didn’t call my mom the day Blake died because I was in the hospital.

  After Rachel and I fought on our wedding anniversary, I broke a rib and the nurses thought I might have kidney damage, but in the end, it turned out I didn’t. It was something else, they said, to do with my waterworks. I think they maybe hinted it was involved in the Wifely Act but were too embarrassed to say more, only told me to visit the women’s clinic out of town.

  I couldn’t exactly tell them I’d been going to that women’s clinic each and every month for the longest time, only now I couldn’t go back. Because Blake lost his temper with the folks there and told me we couldn’t make regular visits any more.

  In any case, the hospital nurses took a good long look down below, too, and I saw a nurse writing something down about my scars.

  Blake drove me back home. Didn’t say much. Only that Rachel was under a lot of pressure and he hoped I could forgive her.

  The best thing about all this happening is Rachel trying to be nice. She knows I could likely go to the police. Turns out that’s what scares Rachel most—authorities, paperwork.

  So when the big fight came about which funeral parlor to use, I got my way for once. Rachel wanted a place experienced with polygamist Mormons. She said she didn’t want us exposed to judgment when we were burying our husband. I wanted the place I’d seen downtown. A cute little place with pink flowers in the window, run by a caring lady funeral director. That was what the sign said. I thought it sounded nice.

  Now we’re actually at the pink flowers place, and the funeral parlor lady is looking at us kinda funny. I’m secretly thinking Rachel might have been right.

  The funeral director reminds me a little of the women I knew growing up in the Italian quarter. She’s maybe fifty, smelling of strong perfume, with loud pink lipstick on thin lips. I guess you gotta look a bit bright when you spend your days tendin’ to dead folk.

  “You were all his wives?” she confirms.

  Rachel rolls her eyes at me: I told you so.

  The lady starts fiddling with her necklace. Regular Mormons get all nervous around plural types like us, on account of the fact we’re fornicating and going straight to hell.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say. “Blake was a husband, a lover, and a friend to all of us. We know that plural marriage isn’t for everyone, but it worked for us.” I give her a winning smile. Tina and Rachel exchange glances. They never like it when I tell what Rachel calls my stories in public.

  “I’m not sure this is the best place for you ladies,” says the funeral lady. “We don’t generally serve… I mean
we have a moral duty to our customers…” She swallows, choosing her words. “There’s a place across town… I can give you a card. They handle funerals for folk with no religion at all, so I don’t suppose they would have an objection to”—she waves a manicured hand—“whatever it is you people need.”

  Rachel wears a pained expression now. Tina just looks mad.

  “We’ll be needing a very special headstone,” I say. “And a whole mess of flowers.”

  The funeral lady shakes her head firmly.

  “Plural marriage is forbidden by the Church,” she says. “If you had any respect for the religion, you’d know that. I won’t serve a pack of adulterers, plain and simple. If it gets found out I helped you, they’ll all come here.” Something passes through her eyes. Like she’s imaging hordes of buck-toothed inbreds winding up outside her nice pink-curtained funeral parlor.

  She starts walking toward the door. “I really would rather you all just leave.”

  Silently, we troop out the door, me burning up with embarrassment, Tina sort of introspectively glowering.

  I glance at Rachel. She looks thoughtful. Guess this kind of thing has happened to her before. Since I know all about her now, and her name isn’t really Rachel.

  Rayne Ambrosine.

  That’s her real name. I wanted to shout it right from the rooftops when I found it out.

  Whaddya know, folks! Rachel Nelson has a different name. And she was even born somewhere other than what she likes people to think.

  Truth is, I turned into something of a snoop. Cooped up all alone in the ranch, I got bored. I used to pretend I was Cagney from the old detective stories I’d seen on TV. I’d poke around in the bedrooms, behind pictures, acting like I’d found something incriminating. Then one day, I actually did. A pile of papers in Blake’s suitcase.

  Most of ’em, I couldn’t really understand. They looked like property or deeds or something. But right at the bottom was a birth certificate. A birth certificate for a person I’d never heard of.

  A girl named Rayne Ambrosine. I thought about this for a good while. Then it occurred to me to check the date of birth. It was Rachel’s.

  I kinda sat on the information, like this secret present, for months, not sure what to do with it. I wondered what would happen if I put the certificate name into the internet.

  I thought and thought about it. It bothered me. We don’t have a computer or anything like that, so I couldn’t actually act on the impulse. Blake had a phone with internet, but I could hardly ask to use it. First, I’d have to tell him I’d been snooping, and I’d get a scolding or worse. Second, he doesn’t like us to have anything to do with computers. So he’d likely say no in any case.

  Then one day, Blake drove me downtown for what wound up being my final appointment at the women’s clinic. When they said my condition for sure wasn’t physical and suggested a psychologist, Blake started talking so loudly about government mind control that they asked us both to leave.

  Blake must have known I was upset, since he let us stop off at McDonald’s on the way back and even bought me the meal that came with a heart-shaped lip gloss.

  When Blake went to the bathroom, I noticed that McDonald’s have internet consoles. I waited there for the longest time, wondering if I’d be brave enough to actually do it. Then I got up, walked quickly across the room, and sat down in front of one.

  There were some teenage boys next to me, and I saw them nudge each other as I punched in the letters one by one, my mouth working to sound them out. But I managed to enter the name: Rayne Ambrosine.

  That’s when I saw Rachel was all over the newspapers.

  That was how the fight began on the night of the wedding anniversary a few days later. I told her I knew. I was still mad at her, I guess, ’cause she was clearly so pleased about the doctor saying there was nothing wrong with my hoohah. So I just came right out and said it.

  I know what you really are, Rayne Ambrosine.

  And she pushed me, right down the stairs.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tina, Sister-Wife

  The way things are with me at the moment, I can’t handle keeping any amount of forward thinking in my head. That’s why it’s easier to let Rachel take charge with all the funeral arrangements. Things like that always were her department anyhow.

  If I start thinkin’ about the burial, I’ll relapse. If I start thinkin’ about how Blake died, why Blake died…

  My counselor used to say one day at a time—but sometimes you have to take that down to one hour, or even one minute. Like you’re on a tightrope and have to stay fixed on puttin’ one foot in front of the other.

  I remember asking him about when you get to the end of the tightrope, and he said, “You might not. But the tightrope is a better place than the floor.”

  Rachel has driven us all out to her favorite place in the whole world—Deseret Holdings—where food is packaged in bins, buckets, or ten-kilo sacks, and generic root beer comes in seven-liter boxes. She wants to load up for the funeral.

  “No such thing as fun-size here, in more ways than one,” I whisper to Emily as we follow Rachel with her enormous shopping cart along the towering aisles of bland packaging.

  Emily giggles, then covers her mouth. “The fun is in the discount, right?” She grins, doing a pretty good impression of Blake. “So long as you don’t like having fun,” she adds in her regular voice.

  We exchange smiles. Blakey took frugality to the next level. I’ve never heard Emily rip on him before. Emily and I never talked a whole lot, on account of everything coming out of her mouth being a lie. It’s nice to see she has a sense of humor. Guess she hid it.

  “Sure wish Blake was here now,” I say. “Even if he woulda made us skimp on his own funeral supper.”

  Emily looks away. “Hey,” she says, eyeing a shelf. “We could use some Drano, right?”

  “Um… No?”

  Emily starts loading bottle after bottle. “Sure we can. Can’t have too much. Like the lady on the commercial says.”

  “Gosh darn it!” Rachel’s voice floats down the aisle. She’s struggling with a paper sack of something bigger than she is.

  “Come on,” I say to Emily as she tosses another bottle in the cart. “We’d better go help her before she kills herself.”

  It’s a bad choice of phrase, but Emily doesn’t seem to notice.

  We reach Rachel just in time to manhandle an outsize bag of chocolate sheet-cake mix into the shopping cart before it falls and splits.

  “Jiminy Cricket.” She makes a comedy pretend wipe of her brow. “I really thought it was gonna fall. Good work, team.” She doesn’t smile though. Hasn’t since we heard the news. Instead, she glances in the cart.

  “What’s with all the Drano?”

  I shrug.

  Emily ignores the question and starts reading one of Rachel’s large packages.

  “Choc-olate cake,” she says slowly, her finger following the words. “You got a premix?”

  “Blake liked this brand. No need for eggs or milk. No need to rely…”

  “On provisions that can’t be stored long-term. I heard that a million times already. But Blake’s not here.” There’s a strangely determined look on Emily’s face. A little steel behind the bug eyes I’ve never seen before.

  “I’d like to bake a real cake,” says Emily quietly.

  Rachel is taken unaware by this new version of Emily. She looks at me like she was expecting me to step in. Assert her position as head baker.

  “We’ll both bake,” Rachel decides. Judging from how she’s looking into the shopping cart, I think part of her decision is she doesn’t want to unload the megasack.

  “No,” says Emily. “I’ll do it.” She looks at Rachel, then to me. “Blake always said I wasn’t a homemaker,” she says. “Well, I want to prove him wrong.” She has a real fu
nny expression. Like she’s getting her own back for something.

  “I don’t recollect Blake saying that,” says Rachel.

  “Well, he did,” says Emily. “Maybe you only listened to the things he said about you.”

  A thought bubbles up.

  We don’t have to kowtow to Rachel as head wife. There’s no Blake to step in. Guess Emily has already realized it. But in actual fact, I find myself feeling sorry for Rachel. She looks real hurt.

  “It’s not fair for you to do everything, Rachel,” I say. “Let us help.” I shoot a look to Emily. A look that says If you make the cake, there’s a fighting chance we’ll have something edible.

  She smiles, then hides the expression with her hand, looking away.

  “You can do the funeral potatoes,” I assure Rachel. “That’s the most important part, ain’t it?”

  A word on funeral potatoes. They’re legendary in Utah and absolutely nowhere else. Potatoes baked in canned soup, cheese, and cream, topped off with crunched-up, buttered cornflakes or some other crunchy sprinkle. A dish for when men did manual labor and the women stayed home with twenty kids tugging at their skirts and a Valium prescription. Welcome to Utah. Set your watch back fifty years.

  “I’ll make the special kind, with Ritz cracker sprinkles,” says Rachel, taking a determined grip on the shopping cart. “I’ll have to pay a visit to a different store to pick some up. And I’ll need to ask the minister if I can borrow his wife’s big dish. She’s got a three-gallon casserole. We’ll need a big drum of margarine, and those three-quart cans of chicken soup are economical.”

  She nods, reassured but still slightly confused. She’s still trying to work out her place, I think, now that Blake has gone. Guess we all are.

  Emily and I exchange another meaningful glance. Rachel is back in full Rachel mode. If she’s cooking the most Mormon of Mormon dishes for her own husband’s funeral, they’re gonna be the holiest potatoes anyone ever ate.

  I kinda love Rachel a little for that. She can’t help but do her level best.