The Love Wife

by Gish Jen

  Half the shore from which our peninsula stemmed was undeveloped, being precipitous; the other half was now a trailer park. The trailers all had awnings, and decks with flowers on their railings; some were double-wides. A crowd of them nosed the pond, their cinder blocks set so as to cantilever them over the rocks, right to the edge of the water. I wound through the settlement, then stopped to unlock the gate to the causeway. The gate had been festooned with junk-food wrappings and empty beer cans, all ingeniously affixed with twisties and string to the metal grid. Folk art. As for what the gate blocked, other than my car—clearly nothing. I drove farther only to behold whole encampments of people and beach towels clustered on the Baileys’ beach. No children today; mostly teenagers Lizzy’s age and up. Gregory always claimed even the ten-year-olds around here sniffed glue; the evidence before me suggested a continued interest in chemical entertainment. A number of the kids had boom boxes, all tuned to the same loud station. That spoke to some spirit of cooperation, as did a general fondness for tattoos. Some of them leaned against the NO TRESPASSING signs. Others were casually entwined.

  I honked as I drove in, more to warn them of my intrusion than to intrude on them. Lackadaisically they began to scatter, like concertgoers done with their ovation but still hearing music. Some waved. I waved back. A few gave me the finger. Others made slant eyes. One skinhead felt compelled to cup his girlfriend’s near-naked breasts from behind and shake them at me; she slapped him, but still he yelled: — Eat your heart out, chink boy.

  Chink boy.

  This was the sort of moment when I took refuge in ownership. Shielding myself, mostly, the way my mother taught me: with the knowledge that I had a net worth several times my tormentor’s. Eat your own heart out. Let’s see your tax return, I wanted to say. Also, though, privately, I used another knowledge: that I had a white wife, with breasts many times more beautiful than the pair being flaunted.

  I would have preferred not to have thought this.

  Was one of these kids the jerk setting off the alarm? One guy in particular seemed to eye me with special interest—a burly dude, his entire chest and back blue-black with tattoos. He had the fantastic ears and eyebrows of a pirate; his eyes bulged bold.

  BLONDIE / Billy.

  CARNEGIE / For the record, I did not actually blame the locals for enjoying the beach when we weren’t there. They might take their empties with them, though; and if only they would betake themselves elsewhere too, when we came to town. But how to negotiate such an arrangement?

  The main cabin was dark, the alarm on RESET.

  The entrance-hall walls were covered with photos of the Baileys sailing, playing tennis, building things. How many construction projects there had been over the years! The dock, the wooden canoe, the beach pavilion, the boathouse. And there I appeared, with Lizzy and Blondie, on our wedding day. How splendid a scene; I could see why the Baileys had time and again been unable to bring themselves to sell. I myself straightened a few frames up. Of course the Baileys had made relentless fun of the downtown when it got its first cappuccino machine. But how sad when the gentrification stalled! The upscale café looking emptier and emptier; the bottles of Italian syrup less and less Italian. Every year the property assessment dropped.

  That was good for taxes, anyway.

  How dark the living room. How empty, how cold. I started—was that somebody lurking in the corner? My chest tightened.

  Still, profile in courage that I was, I turned on the lights.

  BLONDIE / Of course it happened when Carnegie was gone.

  I had not been to the Overlook for a while. But I had told Carnegie I would go, and so I did, Bailey and all.

  Mama Wong was in bed, half covered. Asleep. She had one orthopedic shoe still on, its lace untied.

  I sat down heavily. My first solo excursion since Bailey was born—already I felt drained. How was I going to get home? I peeked at Bailey. He had a snap-out car seat, but I carried him in a sling—a kind of hammock across my chest—not wanting him to become overly attached, as Wendy had, to his seat. He was not smiling yet, but he did make a smilelike face. Gas, I knew. Still I cooed, and admired his eyelashes, and marveled at his eyes. That baby stare—that measureless openness. How it opened all it fell upon; I returned its wonder wholeheartedly, then placed on Mama Wong’s rolling tray a bowl full of wonton. Gingerly—my stitches. I had brought the wonton from a restaurant, and warmed them in some soup in the kitchen microwave. Of course they were not in soup now—hot soup in the room? No. But I hoped she would like the wonton themselves. Carnegie thought Mama Wong might be forgetting how to eat; Alzheimer’s patients did, toward the end. If so, these might help her remember—the smell might help.

  And indeed—because of the smell?—she seemed to stir. Her eyelids fluttered. Between her black lashes a crescent of white eyeball seemed to push forward, bulging yet dry. Her mouth opened; that was dry, too. Yellow teeth, dry lips. Even her gums looked dry. A rasp to her breathing. Where was the humidifier we had bought her? We had bought one, I knew. The cool-mist type, believing that the safest.

  She fell back asleep, snoring. A patch of light on her shoulder grew and shrank, grew and shrank.

  I closed the curtain.

  My mother, when she was dying, had had old friends visit every day. They baby-sat for us kids. They made up casseroles. They brought in books, then books on tape. No one, in contrast, came to see Mama Wong. All the people who had so envied her rise now ignored her fall. There was no church service with special prayers for her, no hairdresser to make a special trip in. No son of a friend, now bigger than his mom and wearing a white coat, to offer a second opinon. Would things have been different if Mama Wong had been part of a community? If she had had more family? If she hadn’t been so successful? Her first year in the home, a few people came. Some of the same people who had come to our wedding.

  Now it was just Carnegie.

  I was glad to be here. I was glad for this chance to care for Carnegie’s mother in a way I had been unable to care for my own. I was ten when my mother died; often I wished I had been older. All I had been able to do was help brush her hair sometimes, and pick the stray hairs off her blankets and sheets. Her hair was falling out in clumps, so the picking up was a job. Which she appreciated having done, having always been fastidious—one of the reasons she had been so good at her work. Thank you, Miss Jane, she would say through her oxygen mask, holding my hand with both of hers. Though mine was much smaller, it seemed equal, somehow, to her two—having so much more substance. My elf, she said.

  Now, a voice in the hall: — Help! Help! it cried. I’m stuck! I’m stuck! Help! Help!

  Leaning over Bailey, I peeked out into the living room. None of the attendants had so much as glanced up. The woman had been calling this way for months—at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner.

  — Help! Help! Get me out! Get me out!

  Eventually she would stop. Eventually she would see rescue. Thanks to Mama Wong’s longevity, Carnegie and I had seen the pattern again and again—how the shouters stopped shouting, the singers stopped singing. They missed story hour. They missed meals. Generally, they were moved then to a nursing home. You could only stay as long as one attendant, alone, could handle you. Once you needed two you had to go.

  Only occasionally did a resident stay, and have hospice come. Before Corinne, Mama Wong’s suite mate Ronnie had died in her room. How grateful the family had been that there were no IV tubes in the end, no extraordinary measures—that they were able to watch Ronnie waste away. Carnegie and I watched, too, as Ronnie grew thinner and thinner—shrinking to the size of premodern man, Carnegie said later. She slept all the time; her breathing became more and more labored. Her eyes opened but didn’t focus, then didn’t open at all. Her eyeballs rolled back into her head. Her jaw hung slack. The days were marked by the quickening and slowing of her breathing. The family gave her morphine under the tongue; the drug ran red from the corners of her mouth. Hospice turned her expertly, often; she was on
a vibrating air mattress, but still wanted turning. Her fingers turned blue. Still she hung on and hung on, in a coma. Her family slept in chairs, eating candy and chips—swabbing her mouth with water. They reported on the night scene.

  — There’s only two people on at night, said her son Angelo. If there was a fire, there’s no way they’d ever get everybody out. No way.

  We shook our heads. Something we hadn’t thought of.

  — And that Mary Lou, you have to watch out for her, said Angelo. She wanders around at night. They found her rifling through the office files. She goes through people’s pocketbooks. They found big bucks in her undies.

  We shook our heads again.

  Then came the changing of the nameplates. The nameplates were made of brass and hung outside the residents’ room—a sign that the Overlook saw its residents as individuals, that people’s loved ones were in good hands. Never mind that the plates were more substantial than the residents, and sure to outlast them.

  For a while there had been no nameplate outside Ronnie’s room. Then it became Corinne’s room. Corinne only stayed a few months. Now her plate was gone too, and the room was empty again—the bed stripped, Corinne’s walker gone. Corinne’s bulletin board gone. Corinne’s rocker.

  — That was the rocker in which she nursed all seven of us kids, her daughter Crissy used to say. If she remembers anything, it’s that rocker.

  Crissy had brought it in after a workshop on stimulating the memory. That was after the workshop on safety and before the one on grieving.

  Now there was a new workshop series. I cooed at Bailey as I glanced over the schedule. Its layout was cheery as an aerobics schedule at a health club.

  Mama Wong opened her eyes suddenly, sat up, and said something in Sichuanese. Even over the course of a single sentence she could look alternately blank and agitated. She ground her teeth.

  — I brought you some wonton, I said.

  I said their name in Mandarin—huntun. How many times in the past Mama Wong had made shriveling fun of my Chinese. But now she seemed to be listening, trying to understand.

  — Huntun, I said again.

  — Huntun, she said.

  There it was—a familiar edge of correction in the repetition. Then the teeth grinding. It was not clear she understood me.

  — Would you like some?

  No response.

  — Would you like some? I asked again.

  This time I crossed my hands as I asked—as best I could, with Bailey in front of me. I didn’t know any Sichuanese, but Carnegie had once told me that the word for ‘wonton’ sounded like crossed hands in that dialect, that as a boy he had crossed his hands when he wanted wonton. He had called it a kind of Chinese sign language.

  And sure enough, Mama Wong crossed her hands back, even smiled in response.

  — Would you like some?

  She nodded.

  A smile! A nod! I was surprised how elated I felt.

  I stood, helped her sit up, then pushed her tray cart in front of her, arranging the bowl and chopsticks on it. A napkin. All with Bailey hanging in front of me like a kangaroo joey. Then I sank back down, admiring him—examining the peeling skin on his hands, the hobbit hair on his ears. Both were perfectly normal, according to the doctor. How seriously Bailey studied my face. At home he could already track a black-and-white toy moved slowly across his bassinet; now he seemed to be able to track my face, too. I smiled.

  — They’re warm, I said. I warmed them in the microwave.

  — Cold no good, Mama Wong said.

  So lucid! Ignoring the chopsticks, she lifted a dumpling to her lips with her fingers.

  — Hao chi ma? Good?

  — Hao chi, Mama Wong answered.

  She reached for another, then began to cry.

  — Carnegie should bring you Chinese food more often, I said, tearing a little, too. — He should bring people to speak Chinese to you. I’ll tell him when he gets home.

  — Carnegie, said Mama Wong.

  Her arm rested on the bed rail. Absently she swung, very slightly, her sensibly shod foot; the plastic ends of the shoelaces clicked softly as they hit the bed frame.

  She dropped her dumpling. I hated to leave it on the carpet, but the thought of bending to retrieve it—impossible. Why had I boiled the wonton in soup? They’d picked up a sheen of fat, making them that much more slippery.

  — Where is Carnegie?

  — He had something to do. Ta you shiqing.

  — Not coming today?

  — Not today.

  I placed a fresh wonton in her bowl.

  — Eat, I said. Delicious.

  She ignored it.

  — Not coming! His old mother stuck in hotel, he is not coming to pay the bill?

  — No, no, don’t worry. He pays the bill.

  — How much? Expensive. How much?

  Her shoe stopped swinging.

  — Five thousand dollars, I said.

  — Five thousand dollar! Highway robbery! For one night!

  — No, no. Not for one night. For one month. Or no—forty-five hundred, I think.

  — Five thousand dollar! Who can afford that kind money? Nobody! Highway robbery! Who can afford that kind money?

  — Have another huntun, I said.

  Bailey was beginning to smack his lips and butt his cheek against me.

  — Are you thinking about eating too? I asked him.

  Settling in the chair, I prepared to nurse.

  — We lived in a tall house, said Mama Wong suddenly. Way up in sky.

  I thought for a moment. — A stilt house? I guessed.

  — We throw things down. All kind things. Down down, into river.

  — That must have been fun. What kind of things? Do you remember?

  She ground her teeth and scowled. — Who can afford that kind money?

  — Nobody, I sighed.

  — Nobody!

  An attendant appeared.

  — And how are you today, Madam Wong?

  Ranginna parted her hair exactly and drew it back severely, but was cheerfully flexible as she opened the curtain.

  — Too sunny for you?

  She closed it again with perfect equanimity.

  — Look, Mama Wong, did you see? You have a new grandchild.

  I lifted Bailey quickly out of his sling—just for a moment, knowing he was hungry. Supporting his head. Spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth; his onesie rode up under his tiny arms. But Mama Wong was not distracted.

  — Crazy money! Crazy! Who can afford that kind money?

  — Nobody.

  — Nobody! Especially he marry that Blondie, all she know is spend money.

  — Another huntun?

  I started Bailey as we talked. Thanks to the cracked nipple, the left breast was not producing as well as the right; I therefore began on that side, to stimulate it with Bailey’s first, hungriest sucks. But the pain—I could barely keep myself from crying out.

  — Went to bathroom, said Mama Wong.

  Her voice dropped suddenly—so faint, now, I could barely hear her.

  — Wheelchair, she said.

  — Mouth, she said.

  — Not coming, she said.

  — Not coming, I echoed, watching the clock.

  Bailey sucked. Mama Wong grew agitated again.

  — Five thousand dollar! Carnegie not coming! I know you! I know you!

  She edged out of bed, picking up a huntun as if it were a snowball she was going to throw.

  — I know you! she shouted. You are not Carnegie!

  — No, I’m not Carnegie.

  — Carnegie not coming! Who can afford that kind money? Nobody! Nobody! I know you! You cannot fool me. That is a doll.

  She began to stand, steadying herself with the tray cart.

  — Sit down, I said. Calm down. And be careful, that cart rolls. Do you want a glass of water?

  — You are Blondie! yelled Mama Wong, throwing the huntun.

  The wonton flew ove
r my shoulder, landing on the dresser.

  — Where is Carnegie? she went on. You are Blondie! Blondie! You are not Carnegie! You are Blondie!

  Three more minutes. Bailey sucked.

  — My name is Janie, I said, in case you’ve forgotten.

  — I did forget.

  Mama Wong did not sit down.

  — Blondie, she said, short for Jane.

  I almost cried.

  — Thank you, I said. This is your new grandchild. Bailey.

  I opened the sling a bit, so she could see. She was still standing, leaning on the tray cart.

  — My name is not Mama Wong, she went on calmly. My English name is call Lucille. I am Lucille, mother of Carnegie. Next time I make sure he do his homework on time.

  — Thank you, Lucille, I said.

  — Is that a baby?

  — This is your grandchild. Bailey.

  — Bailey. Hen ke ai, she said—very cute.

  — Your grandchild, Mama Wong, I said. Carnegie’s son. He is going to carry on the Wong name.

  What her reaction would have been before she got sick! But all she said now was: — Good girl. Beautiful.

  Bailey sucked; I watched the clock.

  — This is your grandchild. He’s ten days old. His whole name is Ellison Bailey Wong. But we’re calling him Bailey.

  — Bailey, Mama Wong said again. Hungry.

  — Yes, I said. The baby’s hungry.

  — What’s the matter with her hair?

  — He was born that way.

  — Ah, said Mama Wong. Another Blondie.

  — Another Blondie.

  Mama Wong craned her neck to see better. She took a step, using the tray cart as a walker; her bowl and chopsticks shone in the sun.