Authors: Amy Stolls
The Ninth Wife (41 page)
Rory and Maggie don’t speak for a while. Rory counts to ten and ten again, letting his anger taper off into a pensive melancholy. The drive back into the city has given him time and space to start putting things into perspective. He didn’t tell Lorraine where he was living, or Bess’s real name. If she really is after him in some way, he supposes she would have acted by now. Maybe he’ll still go to the police with something. He’d look up what to do online when he gets back home. He looks over at Maggie. She looks tired. She must be feeling lonely these days to do what she did today, he thinks.
Maggie returns his gaze. “What are you thinking about?” she says.
“I’m remembering how in Boston I often felt like your sidekick, like you kept me around just for your amusement. I felt that same way today.”
Maggie leans back against the headrest. It appears as if she’s giving his declaration serious consideration. “Did you ever wonder,” she says, “what would have happened if we stayed in Dublin?”
“Not really.” Had they had this conversation years ago or even on the drive down to Joliet, he might have told her the truth, that he used to think about it a lot. He used to imagine them still together with a couple of kids, visiting with the grandparents and cousins and uncles and aunts. But those imaginings were long ago, replaced with dreams of other women, other places, other lives. He doesn’t want to wax nostalgic with Maggie any longer. “You know what the problem is?” he says. They are driving through the city now, almost at her hotel where she has asked to be dropped off. “You still need someone like me, or the way I used to be. You’re a puppeteer, always looking for your puppet and an audience. But me? I don’t need someone like you anymore. I need someone I can enjoy life
with
.”
Maggie doesn’t respond. He tries to gauge her reaction, but she has turned her body fully to the window so he can’t see her face.
He pulls the car up in front of her hotel. It’s been a long day. “I suppose you wouldn’t want to come up for a drink, eh?” she says, still facing the window.
This time he doesn’t respond.
“That’s too bad,” she says, holding on to her dignity with a smile and a deep breath. Her big straw bag is at her feet. She searches through it, takes out her wallet, and hands Rory her business card. “In case you change your mind.”
“It was good to see you, Maggie.” He kisses her on the cheek.
She steps out of the car. “Good luck, okay? I hope you find her.”
R
ory drives in the direction of downtown, not sure where he’s headed. He’s hungry. He finds a parking lot, pays the attendant, and ducks into a little Italian place under the el. He orders a hearty lasagna, then uses the pay phone by the restroom to call Bess. She doesn’t answer and when the beep comes, he doesn’t know what to say so he hesitates and then hangs up. He knows the area code will appear on her caller ID and he’s not ready to tell her where he is. He needs time to think. Instead he calls Gabrielle and leaves her a message. “Hi Gabrielle, it’s Rory,” he says. “Long story, but I’m in Chicago. I came to find Bess, but she left the city this morning, a day early. I don’t want her to know I’m here, I still want it to be a surprise, but I’m a little concerned. Have you heard anything? Don’t tell her, okay? I’m still”—and here his mind races—“I’m still figuring out what to do. I don’t know where I’m staying yet but I’ll find a way to check my e-mail, so feel free to get in touch that way. Thanks.”
He walks back to his table and indulges in a beer. His mind is swirling; he feels a little light-headed. What should he do now? Go home? Stay in Chicago? And do what? And then a thought comes to him: Cici. He could visit Cici.
G
ood morning,” says Rory, “where are you?”
“Hey there! I’m so glad you called!” Bess is emptying the van of trash. She stops and leans against it. “We’re in Omaha. We’re leaving soon to drive the rest of the way to Denver. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Likewise. I’ve been having problems with my phone.”
“What phone are you using now then? I don’t recognize the area code.”
“I’m borrowing a friend’s cell phone. So you left Chicago early.”
“How’d you know?”
“Gabrielle told me. I called her to make sure you were okay.”
Bess is touched that he checked up on her, relieved that they’re finally connecting, overcome with love and excitement just hearing his voice. “Cricket’s ex-wife died. The funeral is Sunday.”
“Gabrielle told me. I’m sorry. Please pass along my condolences, won’t you?”
“Sure.” She notices now that he doesn’t sound like himself, or at least there isn’t the usual excitement behind his voice as there is with hers. “You sound down.”
“A little,” he says, and pauses. “So how was Chicago? What did you do?”
“Not much. I saw my great-aunt Esther, which was nice.”
“I see.”
Then he gets quiet. She’s starting to feel nervous. “What’s wrong?”
“I was thinking,” he says, “why did you stop in Toledo?”
“It was on the way.”
“You could have stopped anywhere. Why there?”
She bristles at his tone. “Like I said, it was on the way. The timing was right for lunch.” And then she takes the first step. “And I wanted to see it, knowing you had lived there.” She can hear him breathing.
“With Lorraine,” he says flatly.
“What do you mean?” Is the anger behind his accusation so acute that he can’t see the unlikelihood of Lorraine living in the same place? “She wasn’t there,” says Bess in a near whisper. Rory remains quiet. “I’m sorry,” she continues. “But what’s making you mad about that? Remind me. That I’m trying to understand you or that I’m not telling you what I’m doing?” Because, she is thinking, the latter can be rectified.
Please be open to what I have to tell you.
“Both, Bess, good God. You’re trying to understand someone who’s not me anymore. And look who from. How would you like it if I searched out your ex-boyfriends, asked them if I should marry you?”
“I wouldn’t like it at all,” she says. She thinks of her ex-boyfriends, all of whom were before therapy, before karate, before anyone told her she sometimes had morning breath bad enough to kill a cat. No, she understands. She will stop. If she can’t yet tell him about Maggie and Dao, she can at least assure him that the question of marriage is on her mind. “You know, I called you my fiancé once. It sounded strange, but kind of nice, too.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Bess.”
His tone has turned from tepid to cold and she feels the sting. She wants his warm flirtations back. But what
is
she trying to say? “I think about you all the time,” she says. “I miss you. And I know this is awkward, that we haven’t talked about your proposal hanging out there and maybe you even want to take it back.” She pauses, hoping for an interruption. “I mean . . . do you?”
“Don’t put this back on me. What . . . you want me to ask again? Or you want me to say I don’t want to anymore, so it’ll get you off the hook?”
“No, that’s not—”
“Because I’m sitting here thinking I have to give you time to deal with my past. Okay. But then why aren’t you coming to me for help? Why are you out there halfway across the country trying to figure out if you and I have a future?”
It’s so logical, what he’s saying. What has she really learned from Carol, from Maggie or Dao? She didn’t know. She could scream from not knowing. “You’re right. I should ask you more questions. I’m sorry.”
“So ask.”
“That’s hard on the spot.”
“Try.”
“Okay, okay,” she says. “Who was your best man at your weddings?”
“I told you about my friend Vijay in Seattle. We were each other’s best men in our double wedding, when I married Pam. My brother stood next to me at my wedding with Maggie. None for the others.”
“I see. Did you ever register?”
“For what? China? Steak knives? No.”
“Ever pay alimony?”
“No. Most of them made more than me. C’mon, Bess. Ask me what you really want to ask me.”
She imagines herself in a fetal position at the bottom of a rocking rowboat, the rowboat small and alone in miles of a dark, open sea. “Why do you think it’s going to work with me, Rory? Why do you think I’m any different? Do you finally think I’m the one you’re going to grow old with?”
He sighs. “I don’t know that you are, Bess.”
It is a punch to her gut. She feels frail, unhinged.
“I mean, I’ve done a lot of thinking. You can’t go through what I’ve been through and be surprised anymore that things don’t work out. But I have hope. And determination. And I love you.”
“Why do you love me? Why am I different from the others?”
“Those are two different questions. I love you because you’re smart and sexy and vulnerable. You’re different because you’re Bess Gray, and I’m in love with Bess Gray.”
Bess feels tears well up. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“What was that? It’s hard to hear you.”
“I said . . .” and here she pauses and looks up to the great expanse of a sky. “I love you, too. I really do.”
dear bess,
here is a question for you: what can we truly know?
i knew much about rory’s past before we were married, as much as he thought to tell me. and i believe rory would have honored his marriage vows to me. but i don’t know if our marriage could have made me happy. i only know it didn’t. rain that quenches and sustains life can also drown. or it can collect as rainwater and merely dry up in the sun. rory and i might have survived if we had a child, or we might never have had a first kiss had i found out who i was before i became who i was not.
my stepson speaks of living in america. he is only six. his teacher asked him what he might like to be when he gets older. he said a vietnamese american. he must have heard me label myself that way, but how did i say it? with pride? resentment? resignation?
i think the answers we seek—about ourselves and how we wish to live—are not preexisting. they don’t lay dormant waiting to be found. they are little children who grow up and move away from the questions that brought them into the world, seeking out new questions to fall in love with. what funny games are they playing sending my stepson’s imagination back to the place i escaped?
do you know about tet? it’s our new year’s celebration. we leave our cities and journey to our home villages with gifts for relatives and offerings to our ancestors. we buy new clothes and decorate our relatives’ homes with flowering peach blossoms and mandarin orange trees in honor of the onset of spring. it is a beautiful time. but during my first year in saigon, i didn’t see it as beautiful. tet was a sad and difficult occasion because i didn’t have a village to go home to. now i visit with my husband’s family and it is beautiful again, because his family is my family, that is the strength of our union.
i am sorry to hear that your father suffered an accident. i am also sorry that your elders are unmoored. i hope you can help them. i hope they can help you, too. may you each and together find your village.
peace,
dao
T
he paramedics in the parking lot of the McDonald’s are scrambling. They push Bess aside to pull through their patient strapped to a stretcher with its squeaking wheels and accompanying contraptions: an orange trauma pack, an oxygen tank, a high-tech vital signs monitor like a toaster with tentacles. She sees parents gripping the shoulders of children to hold them in place, their eyes wide and alert. The exterior of the McDonald’s in the dusk trumpets yellow and red, colors that make her think of sickly skin and blood. There is metal clanking, shuffling, bumping, words she can make out if she concentrates.
“Ma’am, are you a relation?” There are three attendants in blue uniforms. This tall one stands erect, his thumbs hooked on his belt, his gaze impenetrable behind his sunglasses, his thick, boomerang mustache a mask to his humanity. A small black box strapped to the top of his right shoulder burps static. He reaches up to bring it to his lips. “I got it,” he says, then lowers his hand. “Ma’am?”
“That’s my grandfather,” she says through her fingers pressed to her lips. She and Millie had already told the other attendants who he was, had answered questions about his age, allergies, current medications.
Two men lift the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. She catches sight of Irv before the doors shut: his closed eyes, his face buried beneath an oxygen mask, his feet in white socks, his legs fanned out in a V. One attendant stays with him; the other helps Millie into the passenger seat. He pulls out the seat belt and makes sure she’s strapped in before he circles the vehicle to the driver’s side.
Bess—suddenly noticing that she is just standing there, paralyzed, watching the scene unfold—brushes past Pancho Villa toward the ambulance. She raps on Millie’s window and Millie turns to her, scared and tiny with heavy red eyes and quivering lips. She motions for her to roll down the window, but Millie can’t figure out how and is beginning to panic. “Stop,” says Bess, her hand flat against the window. The glass feels the opposite of flesh. “It’s okay, he’ll be okay,” she yells through the window. “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
The driver starts the engine and the flashing lights begin to whirl. “Wait!” she yells. She circles the ambulance; he rolls down his window. His gray hair is parted prudently on the side, his shirt’s silver buttons are gleaming and reflective. “I don’t know where to go,” she says. There is something deep and desperate in her words.
“Where’s your car?” His voice is fatherly, like the head of a 1950s Midwestern television family.
“There,” she points. “The van.”
“Follow Herbert.” He nods with his chin to the attendant still standing erect as if posing for a photo.
