The Half Wives

by Stacia Pelletier

  She spoke once more after the garden was ready. Standing, she brushed off her gloved hands and regarded the scrubbed granite of Jack’s marker. The blue of her scarf reflected the clement sky.

  —My life isn’t large, Henry, she said.—It’s not large. But it’s mine. It’s not anyone else’s.

  Then she turned and went from you.

  An hour later, Marilyn arrived.

  Bess clops past the Masonic Cemetery. The reservoir for the Olympic Salt Water Company lies ahead, off Josephine; it’s the companion to the ocean-side pumping station below Sutro’s estate.

  Lucy will be spending her Saturday morning inside that museum’s workshop, buried in sealskins and fox hides, draped with cotton batting. She’ll be efficient, composed, focused. The task of preparing a 4,800-pound sea lion for mounting and stuffing doesn’t give her a moment’s pause. She’s clearheaded at the taxidermist’s. She doesn’t complain, doesn’t question the hand life has dealt her. She saves everything else up for you.

  You should have left last night’s meeting before things deteriorated. You should have chased after her, should have flagged her down in the rain. She did the same for you once. Last night should’ve been your turn.

  What would you have said? Don’t leave. Don’t let go.

  Forgive me.

  Her second year joining you: Two Chinese men tending a burial ground to the south lit bonfires. Smoke blanketed the cemetery. As the haze drifted into Jack’s garden, Lucy asked what the Chinese ceremonial fire symbolized.

  —Adiaphora, you said.—Though that’s my word. Not theirs.

  She frowned.—Speak plainly.

  —They’re letting go. Burning what’s not needed.

  —Letting go?

  —Of the nonessentials. Of everything that’s not necessary to salvation.

  She was with child then, mere weeks along; she had just found out, and you were overcome with terror and calm. Your secret was about to spin out of control. You were gearing up to tell Marilyn.

  —How does a person decide? she asked as the smoke filtered skyward.—How do we know what’s essential and what’s not? How are we supposed to figure that out ahead of time?

  And then came months of sweating it out in secret, of tracing the veins in her swelling breasts, a violet web under thickening flesh. She forbade you to tell Marilyn. She didn’t want to cause more harm. To whom? you wanted to ask. Her ankles thickened. Her dresses developed permanent stains in the armpits. Her body was raining. She didn’t understand what was normal, what wasn’t.

  —It’s all normal, you tried to tell her, tried to say.—It’s life arriving.

  And every day searing and unbelievable, and every day wrestling dread, worrying Lucy would leave, worrying she would stay, expecting her to flee, fly away, board the train back to Omaha, where she could return to her previous life, her previous incarnation, the girl she was before she collided with you. In Omaha she could write you off as an error in judgment, a yearlong mistake.

  When you asked if she planned to leave, she shook her head.—Where would I go? I can’t travel backward.

  It was a second chance. But for you, not for Marilyn. Therefore, not really a second chance. And Lucy couldn’t have a second chance yet, because she was still in the middle of her first one.

  She concocted an unlikely tale for Mr. Claude about a husband killed in war, a husband she’d neglected to mention, some faceless chap in uniform who’d paid her a conjugal visit before his untimely end.

  —Which war? you asked her.

  She had to think a minute.

  Bess steps into the late-morning light, head resignedly bobbing. The day has stayed quiet, has retained the curtain of dawn.

  You hunch forward on the driver’s box. Mist spits in your face. What did Luther say? Man is a mule forever being ridden.

  And then, February 1889: Anna Christensen slid with a robust howl into Dr. Emma Sutro’s capable arms. You didn’t witness Blue on her first day. You remained locked all afternoon in disputations with Marilyn over some trifle and could not travel, could not leave your front porch.

  You didn’t learn you had a daughter for three days, not until your usual Wednesday afternoon. You showed up late for your own second chance.

  This was no longer a dalliance. It never was. The horizon split wide.

  Marilyn

  DECKED IN PEARLS AND PEACOCK FEATHERS, the plump women of the Episcopal church surge into the reception hall. The women parade their cinched waists and ballooned sleeves; the men sport four-in-hand ties and top hats. One woman wears a hat modeled after a windmill. Another has donned a headpiece topped with a stuffed bluebird.

  Mrs. Wood wanders the tables, her eyes as glassy as the bluebird’s. Waiting orphans line the staircase.

  Ida stiffens. She won’t join the welcoming committee. You won’t either. This isn’t your day. You worked for it, sacrificed many an evening for it. But it’s not yours.

  Henry used to pull you to the bay window practically every hour on Sunday afternoons. He’d push aside the Nottingham lace curtains you had hung to shield yourself from the vacant lots across the street. He wanted to show you dark-eyed juncos and black phoebes pecking at seeds along the walk.

  You tried to support his hobby, his birdwatching. You presented him with a notebook so he could catalog nature, record its comings and goings. My ornithologist, you called him.

  He never wrote a thing down. You asked him why not.

  —I didn’t want to write the birds’ names down, he said.—I just wanted you to see them. I wanted you to watch them living their lives.

  —Whatever for? you asked.

  Henry’s face fell. Later, you apologized.

  Yes, he’ll be there at two today; he’ll replant the garden, such as it is, and then he’ll stand back and wait for you to admire it. He’ll build an oasis of green against the backdrop of the strait and the Marin coast.

  Maybe a woman dwells on that rocky outgrowth across the water, someone living a parallel life to yours, a mirror to your own marriage. Maybe across that expanse of sea, another wife watches another husband plant the same hopeless lilies year after year while trying to think of things to say to him.

  Henry never wants to talk about how the two of you lost Jack.

  —What is there to say? he’ll declare. What’s left to say? We loved him.

  The two of you have reached an impasse. Your husband has friends, or if not friends, customers; or if not customers, people, basic everyday people. He surrounds himself with persons with whom he never has to speak. And you, well, no one surrounds you, and you have all these words that need to come out. Henry has the audience, and you have the speeches. You, Marilyn with words galore, have no one to listen to you, no one except a basset hound losing his hearing.

  Ida has stayed by your side. Ida will hear you out. This girl’s already a better friend than most.

  The guests have devoured the salmon croquettes and moved on to ham and mustard on biscuits. Two red-cheeked elderly women suck on lemon drops and ogle candied cherries displayed in a china bowl. In the background, the band plays a lively tune. Today’s program includes Sarasate’s “Spanish Dances” and Schumann’s “The Gypsies.”

  Ida fingers her new braids. Her leg brace protests as she steps aside to make room for the benefactors.

  —Poor little thing, one of them says, staring at Ida’s leg brace.

  —Such a sad sight, the other agrees, and dips her hand into the cherry bowl.

  Ida looks up at you.

  —Ignore them, you say.

  The last time you and your husband made love, really made love: a lifetime ago, a Sunday afternoon, the middle of a middling Sunday, a mild late-spring day, breeze teasing the curtains, sunlight cascading through the bedroom. A galaxy of dust particles floated between the closet and the bureau.

  You remember white linens, white curtains, white pillows, Henry wearing a white shirt. He removed his collar, unbuttoned the shirt. His eyes filled with the aft
ernoon light. You closed your eyes, not because you wanted to avoid him, but because the sun hurt. It was the first time it had shown up in days; you’d fallen out of practice with it.

  You remember thinking: Maybe this will work; maybe our lives here will work. Maybe we can build a home here. All this vastness, this raw earth, means breathing room.

  Two-year-old Jack lay sleeping next door in the nursery. Your skin warmed when Henry touched your face.

  —I’m going to kiss every inch of you, he murmured.—Every blessed inch.

  You had a son; you were a mother now; months had passed since you and Henry had shut the door on a Sunday afternoon. Why? Why had you waited so long? You loved this. You reclined on the pillows, laced your hands behind your head, and waited again for his touch, which came.

  Things were easier then. His words carried you. Do they still? No. Do you carry him? No. He’s too heavy.

  But the brilliance of that day split him into two Henrys, like stereo images that together produce a three-dimensional view. A stereopticon. That was Henry, two versions of one man, the man of God and the lover, the paramour, his hair falling into his eyes, the way he kissed your mouth, his tie slung over the sitting chair, the tie he would not wear again. It was a new beginning. But you didn’t say that to him because it sounded trite and because it raised the question of what was ending. Also, he was entering you. He had preached that morning on Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and the ram that God sent.

  Afterward, he pulled you to his chest and hummed a soft tune. You fell asleep. The sun crossed over the top of the house, and the light withdrew.

  Women want a man who wants something other than themselves. Does that make sense? You’re not sure. What was it Henry wanted? You can’t recall. But his capacity to attend, to pay attention, impressed you. The rest of the world ceased to exist for him. You had full breasts, full hips, full thoughts, a full life. You still have the breasts and the hips.

  You have not put a halt to loving Henry. Loving Henry has put a halt to you. To the both of you. You’re in this separation together. It is not a clean break. It is not a break. You’re more married than ever. The farther apart you grow, the more tied to each other you become. You’re twin boats caught among ice floes, dinghies lashed together with cord. The farther apart you drift, the more your shared line tenses; the more you feel the rope.

  Is that the clock gonging? Thank God. So it’s not broken.

  You really should leave this place early. Yes, head to the cemetery ahead of schedule. Show up while he’s resurrecting the garden.

  You could join him, surprise him, lend a hand. What’s there to lose?

  11:30 a.m.

  Lucy

  WHEN BLUE WAS BORN, Henry said:

  —I’ll tell her. I have to. I’ll tell her everything.

  Your newborn lay swaddled on your stomach. Emma Sutro Merritt, physician daughter of Adolph Sutro, had assisted with Blue’s birth three days before. She had asked no questions. A wise woman. And efficient, with no tolerance for the nonessentials, no interest in anything less than shepherding new life into this world.

  —A girl, breathing, sizable, with all limbs and all appendages, she said before pausing to brush the hair from your forehead. She clicked her black bag shut and departed, leaving May and June to keep watch.

  —I have to tell her, Henry said again; this was during his first visit.—I have to try.

  He paced in front of your bed, overcome by fatherhood, secret fatherhood, overwhelmed by the sight of his newborn daughter. And by the sight of you as a mother.

  —She’s an infant, you replied.—She won’t understand.

  Henry pressed his fingers against his eyelids.

  —I’m talking about Marilyn, he said as Blue wailed her three-day-old thoughts on the matter.—I need to tell her. She needs to be told.

  —No, you said.—No. Absolutely not. What good could that possibly do?

  Yes. That was you. Blissful, distracted, useless. You refused to allow him to tell his wife, to end the world right then. If the world is going to end, better to do it in year two than year ten.

  But you didn’t need Henry to make some scene, to abandon one family and lay claim to another. You would be his secret life, his secret wife; you would parent in the shadow of his existing family. That was enough.

  Also: You were ashamed. You did not want Marilyn finding out. You could not bear the thought of her finding out.

  If people ever learned the truth about you and Henry, they would want to know why. Before they condemned you—and rest assured, they would condemn you—they would want your reasons. Plageman? they would say. Him? Whatever for?

  You would tell them about the time Henry lugged a bucket of water from the groundskeeper’s shed and wrenched his back in the process, about how he wound up on his hands and knees in agony on your black-and-white-tiled floor while Blue pirouetted in circles, declaring her father’s injury a game of ride-the-pony. You plied him with whiskey to blunt the muscle spasms and did your best to keep Blue from bouncing on him. He nearly missed the last streetcar of the night. He peered up at you, long-suffering in his gaze.

  —Mother of God, I’m never picking up a bucket again. I’m too old for this.

  —I am too, you told him.

  You are seventeen years his junior.

  Yes, you will tell them, you will inform your interrogators that the longest length of time Henry stayed at the cottage was the day he truly couldn’t move. There’s a lesson in there somewhere. There’s a lesson everywhere if one chooses to live that way, darting from example to example, moral of the story to moral of the story. It’s one way to navigate. It’s not your way, but it’s a way.

  People will want to understand. People meaning neighbors, imagined or not; estate workers, friendly or not; family members, estranged or not. Your mother. They will want your life presentable, or if not presentable, fathomable, or if not fathomable, doomed. They will want to hear that you could not resist him, that his passion seduced you, that his desire devoured you, that he was swarthy, dark, pent-up, worn, brooding. That his attention never strayed, that his eyes burned into you. Certainly. Of course. Trade the dark hair for fair hair, but of course. They’ll want to hear you had no choice but that you still hold yourself responsible. They’ll want you to plead the vagaries of womanhood: Truly, I am only a woman.

  And any fee-male with a heartbeat would have thrown herself at him, at the wolf Henry Plageman was back then; any woman living would have begged him to rip her apart, saving and sacrificing both, reducing everything, every motivation, to a single caress, a single unitary moment. Is that how it happened? How will you explain that he was less and he was more—that he was both? Is both? Husband without husbanding, father without fathering, priest without preaching, brother, lover, teacher, friend, everything, all at once, together; too much—that’s not his fault, that’s yours. You asked for too much and not enough. You climbed up the tree of his life in order to see past your own.

  Keeping away might not be working.

  Stone eyes your plate, his fingers drumming the table. You’re still waiting for the doctor to finish Blue’s sutures. And Stone’s waiting for you to ask for his help. You can discern that much. This man would like the opportunity to serve as your champion. He’d accompany you; he’d safeguard Blue; he’d escort you someplace safe, whatever your next destination.

  —Where’s home? he asks. His eyes hold some single-mindedness, some depth you didn’t notice before.—Where are you headed? What’s next for you and your girl?

  Stop being who you’re not. Start being who you are.

  —We’ll be fine, you tell him.—We’ll be just fine. Don’t worry.

  —You’re the one with worry on her forehead, he says.

  He began giving you money. A dollar here, two bits there, whatever he could siphon off, whatever he could afford. He wanted to provide for you. He wanted to be a good father.

  The sad state of Henry’s accounting books—that�
��s partly your and Blue’s doing. Did he expect sexual relations for his generosity? No. Did he hope? Yes. Men will. They hope. They pine. Were his hopes realized? Rarely. You are possibly the most withholding, the stingiest mistress in the history of the world. You are with him only when you want to be with him, and that, it has turned out, is once in a great while, once in a blue moon. But when you do want him, you implode. Nothing will stand in the way; there’s no middle ground when it comes to wanting Henry. You’re either on or off, ablaze or frozen.

  And when the moment announces itself, you hear no sound but his breath deepening, feel no sensation but his hands gripping, the question he forms, half caught, in the base of his throat. His hardness, his softness, the ride of it. He used to look down at the two of you, bodies joined, and say, Christ. Sometimes he’d say it twice.

  As newborn Blue slept, impossibly small, in your arms that first day he visited her, he sat on the side of your bed and kissed her forehead.

  —I can’t believe I found you, he said, searching your gaze.—I’d given up believing you existed.

  —What about Marilyn? you asked; really, you blurted.—Did you give up believing she existed?

  The questions landed on the ground at his feet, as rude and intimate as hawked spit. Henry stood up from the bed, said your name once, quietly. Lucy. Then he stepped out.

  Blue

  THE PRETTY NURSE WHEELS my stretcher into the hall outside the pavilion. I’m successfully stitched up. Ready to make tracks.

  —Can we go home? I ask Ma.

  —We’re leaving, she says, reaching across the stretcher to take over steering.—How do you feel?

  —How do you feel? I say.

  She glances at Mr. Stone.—I’m supposed to be asking her that.

  —Believe you’ve met your match, he says.