The Wife's Tale (33 page)

She studied the girl, whose eyes darted from the watch on her wrist to the parking lot beyond the windows to the breakfast
platter sitting untouched in front of an elderly man at the next table. Though she typically stayed out of restaurants, and
never approached buffets, Mary entered, following a mysterious impulse. As all eyes in the crowded place, some more discreetly
than others, clocked her movement toward the smorgasbord, she began to perspire. She shouted at herself silently—
What the hell are you doing?

Standing before the bounty on display—thick slices of juicy roast beef and lemon-pepper chicken, creamy macaroni, salty diced
potatoes, hot buttered rice—she suddenly understood why she’d come in. She collected a tray and plate and addressed the meats.
Undecided between the beef and chicken, she put both on her plate, then a scoop of macaroni, the rice, a cob of steaming corn
and several rolls with butter. She could feel the eyes of the other diners boring through the tissue of her back as she added
a parfait glass of pudding and a slice of cherry pie to her tray. Two cartons of milk. A bottle of iced tea. The cashier did
not meet her eye as she paid for the food.

Gliding past the other diners, she found the girl with the scar on her lip and set the mountain of food down before her. The
girl looked up. Pretty almond eyes, like in the picture of Jesús García’s wife. Young enough to be his daughter. Or Mary’s.
“
Buen provecho
,” she said. “Eat.”

The girl’s gratitude was implied in her acceptance as she tore into the beef. Mary stood at the table, moved by her mastication,
living her hunger, but not for food. Giddy in her gluttony, the pregnant girl did not see Mary leave the restaurant, as the
other diners had, swallowing a lump in her throat.

Back in her hotel room, Mary settled down to read but could not focus. There were still two hours before she was expected
at Ronni Reeves’s for her babysitting job. Ample time to accommodate the hour-long wait for the taxi. The small print blurred
as the pain between her eyes sharpened and Heather’s face invaded her vision.

She closed the book, pushing aside thoughts of Heather to fantasize about Gooch’s return. She’d have to find something to
wear. Something green to play up her eyes. She decided she’d like to have their reunion at Eden’s instead of the hotel, in
the backyard, under the shimmering eucalyptus. She thought of Gooch’s face upon seeing her, how he would lift his shoulders
and smile that wan smile—his way of saying,
Ah, life
—and how Mary would nod twice and tilt her head, her way of saying,
I know
.

No matter what conclusions he might have arrived at, no matter what clarity he’d found in conversations with God, he would
be devastated by his sister’s death. Mary hoped Eden would be spared the burden of telling him. In her mind’s eye she saw
herself with Gooch, folded into too-small airplane seats on their way back to Canada, wondering what to do with Heather’s
remains. “She liked the water,” Gooch might whisper. “She was such a fish when she was young.” Or he’d have gone with dark
humor and suggested sprinkling her ashes over a field of poppies, or maybe hemp.

Mary called the front desk for a taxi, and sat quietly in the back seat when it arrived. Passing the growing memorial at the
corner, she scanned the faces in the thin crowd of men, wondering if Jesús García was among them, waiting for his uncle with
the bad hip, the stolen yellow sandals hidden in the duffel bag he brought to work.

Imagining the yellow sandals among the carpet of shoes at the front door of the teeming house, she remembered that Jesús had
said he worked at the plaza, which made his offense seem even bolder. She guessed that the sandals were a present for his
plump, pretty wife. But wouldn’t she find that odd? Or had he stolen before, different styles and sizes, to add to the impressive
collection by the door?

Annoyed at her curiosity about Jesús García, Mary turned her thoughts back to Gooch, the mystery of one man enough for now.
She wondered if Gooch would like her red hair.

T
he black Lincoln Navigator was parked beside the big Ram in the driveway of abandoned wife Ronni Reeves when Mary arrived
by taxi at 5:45. As she approached, she heard a symphony leaking out the windows and doors—the shouting percussive mother,
the trilling trio of children, the bass barking dog. The thought of a night alone in the hotel was suddenly appealing, but
Mary could not stop her feet from carrying her up the walkway, or her finger from pressing the buzzer.

The sound of screaming was instantly replaced by the natter of a television cranked too loud. After a long moment the door
opened. Ronni Reeves, red-faced and puffy-eyed, was attempting to smile. “Hi Mary. Come in.”

“I heard… from the street… it sounded—”

“Everything’s fine,” Ronni said, surprised to see that Mary was still dressed in the navy scrubs she had had on earlier. “They’re
just a little wound up tonight.”

Mary smoothed her smock over her round stomach, as if that could excuse her poor choice of fashion. “I suppose you get used
to the noise.”

A commotion beyond the door. A shriek of pain. Children screaming. Ronni inhaled sharply. “Boys!” she shouted, clapping her
hands. The dog barked from a distant room as the boys bawled over each other.

“Oh dear,” Mary said.

“My husband left us six weeks ago,” Ronni said. “None of us are coping well.”

“You said that before.”

“I told you? I already told you that? God, the neighbors don’t even know yet.”

The noise of breaking glass. The women shared a look before busting down the hallway, finding the three boys standing in the
back room amidst the shattered remains of a large TV. The triplets had been shocked dumb by the accident, and stayed put when
Mary instructed them, “Don’t move.” She plucked each boy to safety, lifting them over the shore of glass pebbles to the arms
of their broken mother.

“I just want to scream,” Ronni said quietly.

Mary understood, and led her toward the front door. “Go. Just go.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’ll be fine. I’ve got your number. Go.”

“Thank you, Mary. Thank you.” Ronni reached for her handbag, kissed each boy on the head and said, “You boys be good for Mrs.
Gooch.” She did not so much leave as flee. Mary watched her pull out of the driveway and turned to find the children at her
heel.

“I wanna watch TV!” Joshua shouted.

The other boys agreed loudly. Mary studied them a moment. “Okay then…”

She led them to the back room but stopped, pretending to be surprised. “Oh dear, boys. The television is broken.”

“We wanna watch it!” Joshua yelled.

“But it’s broken.”

“No fair!” he screamed.

“TV, TV, TV,” the other two chanted.

“I am so sorry, boys, but I
broke
your TV,” Mary explained.

Joshua stopped wailing. “
You
didn’t break it.”

“I didn’t?”

“
We
broke it,” he insisted, outraged.

“Well then, you have only yourselves to blame,” Mary said, shrugging.

The triplets studied the strange woman heading into their kitchen. “What are we gonna do?”

“I used to like crayons. I can show you how to draw a puppy.”

They shrugged and found seats at the kitchen table. “The craft box is there,” Joshua said, pointing to a basket half-filled
with torn coloring books and broken crayons. Mary found a few blank pages and sat down with the boys. “I have a few tricks
to draw a puppy. Even a two-year-old could do it.”

“We’re three,” they said at once.

“Oh, three, well then you’ll have no trouble. If you’re three I can show you the tricks for a kitten and a horse too.”

Once the children were involved in their artistic pursuits, stubby fingers leading crayons, pink tongues lolling on lips,
Mary stopped to glance around the beautiful open-concept home. She wondered at the pleasure Ronni Reeves must have had in
decorating it, even if her choices had been ill advised. The furniture, too elegant for a home with three boys, was nicked
and torn, badly stained and dented. What did that say of the poor woman’s marriage? It was unthinkable that the three beautiful
boys could have ruined the union the way they had the decor, but Mary could see the trajectory—the new mother harried and
overwrought, the husband underappreciated and neglected. She too tired and resentful for love, searching for it elsewhere.
The miracle, Mary thought, was that any marriage survived.

Till death us do part.
Did brides and grooms still say that to each other? Wouldn’t that be the height of hypocrisy, when each entered the union
knowing the odds were fifty-fifty they’d endure? Mary wondered if the encroachment of obesity on North America’s population
had risen in tandem with divorce statistics. The mistaking of gluttony for fulfillment. So often a spouse spoke of wanting
more. Needing more. Not having enough. Her own marriage was less enduring than endured, at least by Gooch, as evidenced by
his departure. So what had kept them together all these years? Beyond inertia?

There must have been some force exchanged by their bodies, even after they’d stopped connecting in the physical sense. Love,
or the potent memory of it, mysterious and complex. She remembered that it had been just the past Labor Day that she’d laughingly
told Gooch about overhearing Ray’s comments about her ass. Gooch had risen, seething, from the red vinyl chair in the kitchen
and started for the door. She’d stopped him from driving to Raymond Russell’s to confront her boss, but had secretly adored
his rage. Loyalty. Not bound by a gold band around a designated finger, but kept in the core like a vital organ.

She was pausing, purple crayon over fresh white paper, her mind frozen on a picture from her wedding day, when she was poked
by a tiny, bitten finger. “You’re fat,” Joshua said, his hand disappearing into the fold at her navel.

Tickled by the intrusion, and charmed by the twisted mouth of the tow-headed boy, Mary found his hand. “You don’t want to
tell someone they’re fat,” she said gently.

“Why?” he asked, blinking.

“Because they already know.” Mary winked.

“You’re fatter’n Uncle Harley,” Jacob decided.

She laughed. The boys appeared to have no negative connotation for the word, as if it was just another shape in their primary
hearts. Circle. Square. Fat.

After coloring for a time, Mary made paper airplanes for Jacob and Jeremy. When they started dropping crayon bombs on each
other, she found a bookcase filled with children’s books and gathered the little boys on the sofa in the formal living room.
The three squirming shapes soon molded themselves against her big, warm body as she read aloud the books they pressed into
her hand, one resting sticky fingers on her arm, another absently twisting her red hair, the third climbing aboard her thigh,
captivated by the simplest of narratives. Mary sighed, touched lovingly by hands not her own.

After reading eleven books, three of them twice, she was parched but nonetheless disappointed to hear a car in the driveway.
She lifted herself from the sofa and moved to the window, her heart skipping a beat when she saw that it was not the black
Navigator but a silver Mercedes. She told the boys to stay on the sofa as she went to answer the front door. “Hello,” she
said, to the wiry, dark-haired man on the porch.

“Who are
you?
” the man shot back, trying to look past her into the house.

“I’m the babysitter.”

His expression was critical of both her size and her attire. “Are you from the service?”

“Family friend,” Mary said confidently.

“Where’s Ronni?” He tried to push past her but she blocked the door. “Boys!” he shouted into the house. “Joshua! Jacob! Jeremy!”

The boys stormed the hallway, barreling into the wiry man’s arms, shrieking, “Daddy!” The big shaggy dog, who’d been sleeping
near the sofa, began to bark and howl, nipping at the father’s heels.

“I’m taking them for ice cream,” the man shouted over the dog, carting the delighted boys to his still-running car.

“No!” Mary objected. “You can’t
take
them! You can’t take them
anywhere!
”

He hustled the boys into his car as Mary continued shouting and the big dog protested with angry barks of his own. She danced
around the car as he shut the children inside. “You haven’t even buckled them in!” she cried. But he climbed into the driver’s
seat and jammed the car into reverse. Panicked, Mary raced around to the back of the vehicle and stopped the silver trunk
with her hands. The dog joined her there, no longer barking at the man but at her.

The boys’ father rolled down his window, laughing at the absurdity of the large redhead standing behind his car under siege
by a barking dog. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he called. The dog ran around to his side of the car, jumping at him through
the window. Mary folded her arms, leaning her rear against the trunk. He called her bluff, releasing his foot from the brake.
She stood firm, the heat from the exhaust burning her leg.

From the corner of her eye Mary saw Ronni Reeves tearing up in her Navigator, blocking the Mercedes. The mother climbed out
of her vehicle, shouting obscenities at her glaring husband. Mary opened the door to the Mercedes and lifted the boys out,
the shaggy dog herding them all back into the house, to shield them from an obscene vocabulary lesson as their warring parents
drew blood in the driveway.

When she stepped through the front door a few minutes later, Ronni looked battered. “I’m so sorry that happened, Mary.”

“Now the neighbors know,” Mary said.

Ronni winced. “He is such an
asshole
.”

“The boys might hear you,” Mary cautioned, but the children had already fled to the kitchen to tease the still-barking dog.

“You’ll never sit for me again, will you?” Ronni asked, biting her lip. “You have no idea how hard this all is.”

Mary paused. “My husband left me too.”