—About the board of supervisors. About your boy.
No. Not today.
What he intends to propose—you’ve been thinking the same thing yourself. You’ve been thinking of nothing else the last quarter mile.
—My point, Kerr continues, my point is this. We could bring him with us.
You look away.
Most of this region used to be sand. The eroding Sierra Nevadas, ground down by glaciers, created the dunes. Rivers drained the mountains and carried off sediment. The sand followed a westward course. Tributaries deposited millions of grains along riverbanks from the Sierras to the coast. Wind and floods sent the sand across the exposed continental shelf, covering San Francisco and the central bay as far east as Oakland. The dunes rose up, some as high as forty feet. The same dunes before you now.
—Bring him with us, Kerr repeats.—Move him ourselves. Before anyone else lays a hand on him. Plageman. We could do it on our time, under our direction. Keep him in the hands of his father.
You cannot do this. Not today.
Kerr talks on.—He doesn’t need to travel to Colma or whatever dump they’ll throw them in. He can come stay with me at Odd Fellows’. I’ll find him a spot. A quiet one, something with shade. We could plant him a tree.
He pauses, adds: It’s the least I can do.
You try to reply, but sand rasps in your throat. Bess remains motionless, ears skimming back.
—What choice do we have? he finishes.—We can do it today, move him right now, if you want. We’re here; we have the tools. You brought a shovel. Didn’t you?
—I need to think. Hold on a damn minute. I need to think.
—Plageman, with all due respect, you do too much thinking.
He’s right. And Marilyn’s on her way.
Another gem from the Call:
The winds from the ocean blow direct from this pest-breeding spot, carrying its deadly germs over all the homes of citizens, thereby endangering the lives of over 300,000 persons, the half of which has never been told. It is an appalling and fearful state of things to be allowed to exist in a civilized city like San Francisco, and should be abated at once.
Lucy would not have written such a piece. She would not have catered to fear. But Lucy will never be a real reporter. The deck’s stacked against her.
Does she know it? She might. But you do not have the heart to tell her.
—We have the equipment, Kerr repeats.—And room for a coffin in back. The two of us working together won’t take long. He won’t be very deep buried.
You shove your hat up so your eyes meet his.
—My wife is coming. Jesus Christ. Have some sense. My wife will be here.
—I have sense. I have it aplenty. This way, you take care of him yourself. Protect him from those jackals in office. Keep him near. Keep him with his pa.
He wheezes, a hitching bray; his lungs have stalled. He turns his head and coughs spastically. The white spathes of the lilies tremble with the force of his expectoration.
You place a hand on his shoulder.—What do you need?
—New lungs, he says, panting.
He could be consumptive. You’ve never spent all day with him before. You had no idea how bad off he is. And his nights must be worse than his days.
The rain has pulled back, leaving a proud wind.
—Look, Kerr huskily says.—Plageman. Henry. It was just a suggestion. Nothing has to happen today. That’s one thing I’ve learned. Nothing is an emergency in a cemetery. Whatever the emergency was, it already happened. We don’t have to take your boy out now. We can do it later. Another day. Okay?
You once tried to return a souvenir card Lucy gave you from the midwinter fair. You thought she might want it for the memento box you are always encouraging her to keep.
—Why would I save this? she asked when you pressed the card into her hand.
—To remember the fair, you said.
She averted her gaze.—Why in the world would I want to do that?
She leaves the memento box under the bed to collect dust. She can’t discard it, but she can’t bear to look at it either. The same way she feels about you.
Kerr tries a different tack.
—Why don’t I take you home, then. You can see your wife, sit her down, break the news. Hell, you can visit Chairman Hubbs too. Teach him a thing or two.
—My wife’s coming here. I told you. To see the garden.
—So where is she, then? Kerr returns, defensive. His chest is hurting, and he’s only trying to help.—When do I get to meet Mrs. Plageman?
Clammy fog dips the path in an otherworldly sheen. A figure crosses into the half-light ahead, an old man, older than Kerr, eighty, possibly. He’s skeletal. He’s one of the beggars no one wants to contemplate, no one wants to admit exists, the invisible citizens of the Richmond. Squinting, you follow his progress, his legs in their threadbare trousers. Maybe he’s visiting a child. Maybe his son or grandson is buried in the paupers’ section. Beggars have sons too, after all, and anniversaries, frozen days that refuse to release their grip. They have Marilyns, and they have Lucys, dreams they were too afraid to pursue, resignations they mistook for powerlessness.
—Where’s your wife? Kerr repeats.
—On her way. I said that. She’s on her way.
—Running late?
—No. She’s never late.
The board of supervisors will not manage to move all the bodies. Their work will be sloppy. And those bones they do move, God knows where they’ll end up. One day, rich men with gold watches will swing golf clubs on top of forgotten graves.
You have to get Jack out of here.
—She’s arriving soon, you repeat numbly.—Less than an hour. We always walk to the mariners together.
—You’re sure? Awful foggy out here for a lady.
—Yes. Yes. We meet at the same time and place every year.
He regards you intently.
—Date you lost him? Or date you had him?
—Both, you say.—He was turning two that day.
The foreman’s face collapses.
Get to work. Plunge your hands in this soil. Work is the key; work will save you. Return these plants to the earth. Give them a chance to take root.
—Less than an hour, you repeat, still on your seat in the driver’s box.—Hell, I said that already.
You need to keep talking. You, who hate talking, suddenly require conversation.
You glance over your shoulder. The shovel, solid and heavy, waits in the back of the hearse. Just in case, Stevens cheerfully suggested.
Kerr notices you looking at it.
—Maybe this isn’t the day to do it.
—I know, you say.—But this is the day I’ve got.
And then you can’t say any more.
The foreman’s mouth tightens. He taps Bess’s withers with a switch you didn’t know he owned, allowing the frayed leather to graze her hipbones. The mare jerks into a trot, her first exertion all year. She careens pell-mell into the cemetery, teeth bared, ears flattened.
Marilyn
A BLISTER HAS ERUPTED where Ida’s brace chafes the tender skin behind her knee.
—You’ve outgrown that.
—No, ma’am.
—You have. You’re wearing a brace for a girl two years shorter.
You fish in your pocket for a handkerchief, find one, and stuff it around the top of the brace.
—Does that help? We still have a little ways.
—Yes, ma’am. I’m sure it will.
—But it’s not helping yet.
—I’m sure it will any minute.
Strangers in a dairy truck supplied a ride after you fled the streetcar, after you nearly fell ill a second time. Trundling by, an elderly man and woman slowed their ponies and offered to take you and Ida to your destination. You accepted their kindness. As milk bottles clattered in back, you told the old man where you were going, the city cemetery, and offered to pay him for the ride. They wouldn’t take your money. They also
wouldn’t take you to the cemetery. Apologizing, the old man explained he’d have to drop you a few blocks from the entrance.
—There’s plague in the cemetery, the old woman said.
You and Ida are hiking west now on Clement Street, Ida choosing her steps with care.
—Mrs. Plageman?
—Yes?
—I’ve never had such an adventure.
Is that what this is?
—I’m glad, you tell her.
But it’s better for women to stay at home, to avoid adventure. It’s better that women don’t overexcite themselves, don’t work too hard on any one cause, such as saving the cemetery, though Henry is right to work on saving it, though Henry has to work on it. His job is to ensure things stay the same. Yet you’re dying for something new. This is your paralysis.
When Ida’s limp worsens, you unbuckle the brace and help her slide it completely off. The handkerchief flutters to the ground.
—Can you walk without it? It was still cutting into your skin.
—I can walk. I’m sure of it.
—Are you? I don’t like this, Ida. I shouldn’t have brought you.
Her voice is thin.—Yes, ma’am. Please, I’m having such a lovely afternoon.
—All right. But if it starts hurting more, we’re turning around.
Where to?
Women spend their youth waiting for a man to find them. They spend their middle years cheering that man on, propping him up, bearing his offspring, washing his shirts, sweeping his carpet of crumbs. They spend their waning years wearing circles into that same carpet, wondering where everyone has gone. Women outlive the men for whom they live. And sometimes the children. They revolve around unreliable suns.
Ida stumbles again. To catch herself, she grabs your skirt, clutches your waist.
—I’m sorry, she bleats.—I’ll be more careful. Please don’t make me go back.
—Oh, child, you say, and you set the brace down.
She flings herself into your arms, right there in the middle of Clement Street, and surrenders to a single sob. Her head presses into your chest. On the whole, she’s taken well to being kidnapped. It’s better than being orphaned. At least when you’re kidnapped, it means someone wants you.
You have to stop calling her child.
—Are you all right? you say.
She nods. You two are trading the same useless questions back and forth today. Her skin smells like rain. But you’re within striking distance, nearing the curvatures in the earth, the sanded peaks and valleys that mark the start of the graves. You’re closing in now. Three blocks. Three unending blocks.
You pull away and search her face, woman to woman, half orphan to half wife, your hands still grasping her shoulders.
—Can you keep on? We can rest anytime.
—Yes, ma’am. I want to walk. I’m perfectly fine.
It’s her first lie all day. You’re surprised she held out this long.
Lucy
FINALLY. THE STREETCAR HAS PULLED into the depot by Sutro’s, the same depot where you started this trek almost four hours ago, when Stone bore Blue in his arms.
She walks independently now, skipping off before the other passengers. As you step down behind her, you fight the urge to check back for Marilyn, to contemplate the empty bench where Henry’s wife sat.
Blue wheels around and motions you to hurry.
—Mother! The snails.
A gated fence cordons off Sutro’s stables and sheds from his public grounds. The pump station lies downhill, in another direction. No brilliant article investigating the Olympic Salt Water Company will be forthcoming today. The Banner editor wouldn’t have printed it anyway. He thinks a woman ought to stay home and cook dinner for her husband.
What if she stays home and cooks dinner for someone else’s husband?
You push open the gate and guide Blue into the estate’s interior. Nearly home. She scampers ahead. She knows the route. She’ll save a snail, change out of her ruined clothes. And then, quickly: the cemetery.
What about Marilyn? She disembarked in the middle of nowhere. Who knows where she went? You can’t alter your plan simply because you saw her. You’ve spent a decade altering your plans already. If you even had them.
To the mariners. To Henry. To a habit ten years in the making and three and a half months in the breaking.
—Ma. Faster!
—I’m coming.
—We’re nearly there. The snails!
—They’ll be fine. The rain’s letting up.
This isn’t true. Great globules of water have returned, spattering earth and sand, plopping on top of Blue’s head, watering your daughter, stem to roots. Nearby hulks one of the windmills that brings springwater into the estate’s irrigation system. No one needs that windmill today.
Blue jumps from stone to stone, arms akimbo. Your cottage with its slanted roof lies ahead. How can she not be hurting? Her injuries are brand-new. Your daughter is twirling on formations millions of years old, serpentinite and granitic rocks that traveled from far inland. Yes, inanimate objects travel; yes, that is one reason why it takes them so long. These particular specimens probably came from the Sierra Nevadas. Give them another few million years, and who knows how far they might travel. They would get along well with Henry.
Stopping is what you needed. Or did you tell him to stop because you couldn’t say what you wanted?
Stay. Choose me.
Don’t leave.
She reaches the cottage as the skies reopen. Thick drops pelt her face and shoulders. She searches, stomps from one puddle to another, poking her fingers into the glop, kneeling, soaking, peering around the front stoop, muddier and more autonomous by the minute. You’ll have to scrub that sailor jacket with hot water and soap later.
She can’t find her snails.
You stand, braced, waiting for her explosion. Here it comes.
—Where are they? she bellows, knotting her fists, raising her knuckles to the sky.—Where are the snails?
She speaks to the heavens, to the truculent skies. She calls the snails by name. Dear Lord, she has names for them. She has paired her snails with the U.S. presidents’ names she learned at Barrington Primary. How Henry would howl with delight if you told him.
—Thomas Jefferson! John Adams! John Quincy Adams! Where are you?
The rain pounds as if delivering a curse. Is that lightning striking the ocean’s surface? Lightning hardly exists in San Francisco, nor does rain of this suddenness and intensity, this bizarre, flooding release, water issuing from the skies like punishment. Normally the rain stays hesitant, nonconfrontational; it slips in and out, tiptoes in and out, much like Henry slipped in and out of his two lives, present without being present, touching without touching.
The snails have sunk to the bottom of a pool. Blue wades in. Water swirls around her calves; there go her shoes again. She reaches in, arms plunging. And there go the bandages on her legs. She digs. She produces muck and goop and snails, a handful of tiny dead creatures, fossils in the making. Are they dead? Some are. Some aren’t. It’s going to take a while to distinguish between the two categories. She raises her hands high. Clods of mud speckle her sleeves.
—Mama. Help!
She marches uphill and deposits her fistfuls on the cottage stoop so that they’re safely out of the floodplain. You watch, enthralled. Your daughter is unreal. You must have invented her in Mr. Claude’s workshop, created her out of wire and cotton batting and glue, formed the perfect specimen of the species girl. She’s earth and shell and grit and salt, tears streaming, determined, animated, more alert than you were at that age, more alive too. Or maybe not; maybe all girls start out this way. What in the name of God happens to them?
—The rain wasn’t supposed to do this!
—I’m sorry, you reply, as if you control the rain.
In her mind you do. In her mind you control the parameters of the known world. That’s about to change.
Henry would want you to wri
te about this moment. He would want you to put it in a letter. Tell me what I’m missing, he has written, he has begged. Tell me. I don’t want to miss her childhood.
—I’m not a letter writer, you told him in the final throttled visits before everything ended.—And even if I were, where would I mail them?
—To the store.
—Not safe. Stevens could read them.
—I’d find a safe address, then.
—Where? you said.—Your front porch? Shall I mail them to you in care of Richard?
He excused himself and left the table.
You did not manage your anger well with Henry. Your anger toward Henry. Or toward yourself.
Blue returns to the pond and begins to scoop again; she sifts through the mud with her fingers, panning for snails.
—Hold on, you say, and you return to the cottage and come back with a metal sieve, which you hand to her.
She accepts your offering without a word. The two of you labor side by side, gardening in water, shoes squelching and sucking the base of the pool as you feel around—for what? For their sharp molluscan forms. Far below, the sea pounds, ocean foaming, licking the greywacke, salt water remaking the face of cliffs. Together, you and Blue bend and dip, sift and pan, water fountaining from the sieve; you discover sand and grime and snails, one by one and two by two; your fingers crush several; their fragility upends you. Stealing a glimpse of the top of your daughter’s head, you reach down and kiss her hair, tasting rain and the soap she uses to wash with. It’s the same soap you use to wash with. Your throat is all clogged up now, all stopped up with the life you have lived and the life you will not. You are full with both.
—Stop kissing me, she protests.
—Go inside and change, you say. She trembles with damp and cold.—You’ve saved the ones you can.
—I have not, she says.—There’s more.
She’s holding two new fistfuls, greedy fistfuls.
—Go inside, and I’ll find the last ones. We’re late, Blue. We are truly out of time.
—Promise you’ll find the last ones?
The Half Wives Page 21
