The Ninth Wife (16 page)

“Welcome to Cricket’s world,” Bess says to Gaia. “Will you excuse me for a moment? I’ll go retrieve him.” Bess follows Cricket into the store, leaving Gaia and her stroller outside by a mound of organic tomatoes. Cricket is sitting in a chair in the corner of the store, swathed in a wide woven scarf like a burqa.

“Are you going to pay for that scarf?” drawls a dreary saleswoman.

“Of course not, it’s hideous,” replies Cricket. “Bess, is he coming?”

“I don’t see him,” she says, peeking out the door. “You’re clear. Who is he?”

Cricket lets his burqa slip down to his shoulders. “No one. Stella, come here. Daddy’s all right.”

“Cricket, tell me. I’ll make a scene.”

“That was Claus, for heaven’s sake.”

Bess searches her memory. “The guy who left Stella at your door?”

“Yes, the very same. You can see why I wanted to run from him.”

“Excuse me, miss,” says the scowling saleslady, buttoning a blouse on a hanger. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“No, thank you,” says Bess. “Cricket, I don’t understand. Who’s his sister?”

“I don’t know. The man is obviously delirious, pure insane asylum material.”

“Cricket!”

“All right! My God, woman.” Cricket sighs deeply. There are lit candles flickering nearby, sending out the scent of honeysuckle and lavender. “She’s my ex-wife.”

Bess tries to speak but she has lost her voice.

“What?” he spits out like an insult. “Yes, I was married. A very long time ago in another life.”

Scenarios are flipping through her mind—Cricket as a young, 1960s businessman, polite and evasive . . . and sexless? How does that work? “All this time I’ve known you and you never told me,” Bess says when she finally finds her voice.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not something I like to talk about.”

“What was she like? How old were you? Why didn’t it work?” Cricket furrows his brow at this last question. “Right,” she says. “Why does Claus want you to call her?”

Before Cricket can answer, Bess’s cell phone rings. She finds it in her pocket and flips it open. “Hello?”

“Hi, gorgeous,” says Rory. “Where are you?”

“I’m at Eastern Market. It’s hard to hear you. Where are you?” She glances at Cricket, then turns her back to him and curls into her phone.

“I’m with Sean.” Rory says something else after that she can’t quite understand.

“Rory? Are you there?” She cups her hand over her other ear.

“Bess?” she hears. “Listen, I can’t make the concert tonight. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Rory?” She thought she heard him say he couldn’t make it tonight, but she isn’t sure. “Rory, you’re breaking up. I can’t hear you.”

“Tonight,” she hears, “. . . call you.” And then the connection ends abruptly.

Her hands are in fists now around her phone. She turns back to Cricket, who is untangling himself from the scarf. “He can’t make the concert tonight,” she says. Cricket looks at her with more wisdom than sympathy, which annoys Bess.

“Look,” says the shopkeeper, grabbing the scarf from Cricket. “If you two are not going to buy anything, I’d appreciate it if you’d take your conversation and your dog back outside.”

“Sorry,” says Bess. “We’ll go.” They find Gaia perched on the edge of a pickup truck nursing, the top of her rounded breast exposed to passersby. Gaia looks as peaceful as the Virgin Mary with sun-kissed cheeks and the tips of her lips tilted slightly upward in a vague, directionless smile showing utter comfort and contentment.

“Hi,” she says to Gaia. “Sorry to leave you like that.” The cool metal seat of the truck bed is covered in spinach leaves and smells of diesel and dirt. The owner of the truck tips his hat to Gaia and Bess, then turns his attention back to his customers.

Cricket turns his back to the breastfeeding activity. He tells Stella to sit while he rifles through his bag. Then Gaia’s cell phone rings from the stroller. Bess hands her the phone. With one arm around Pearl and her other hand holding the phone up to her ear, Gaia answers, and then with such excitement that her breast breaks free of Pearl’s lips she yells, “
Sonny!
”

Bess can’t believe it.
Sonny?
Calling after all this time in the middle of the afternoon? And Gaia without a trace of anger in her voice?
Seriously?!
“Give me that!” Bess cries out, grabbing the phone out of Gaia’s hand.

And then she stops.
Gaia, honey?
she hears Sonny say. But Gaia is looking at her with such pity and Cricket is shaking his head and Pearl is noisily sucking the air looking for more milk that Bess realizes what she just did and lowers her arm. Her frustration feels misplaced, but in the swirling energy of its onslaught it seems impossible to work out its origins and all she can do is realize its harm and hang her head. “I’m so sorry,” she says to Gaia, handing her back the phone.

Gaia’s gaze is forgiving. “Will you take her?” She holds Pearl out to Bess while she takes the phone. “Sonny,” she says. “Hi, baby
.
”

Bess accepts Pearl into her arms, coos to her until she smiles and wraps her tiny hand around Bess’s finger. Bess can’t help smiling back, even as her eyes moisten. “She really is the sweetest thing, isn’t she?”

Cricket looks over her shoulder. “She is,” he says softly.

Chapter Twelve

S
eattle attracted people like me, especially in the early ’90s. I suppose I just followed the crowd to the edge of the country until I couldn’t go any further. I checked into a clinic, and got cleaned up. Then I got a job again in computers and for the first six months I went to a support group—every night. And since I can see the worry in your eyes I’ll tell you right now I haven’t touched an ounce of hard liquor in fourteen years. I’ve been through tough times in those years, too, I’m coming to that, but I never went back. I know, you see me drinking beer. Well,
good
beer anyway. That’s what I did before the problems started and that’s what I do now, and I’ve never had a problem since, knock on wood.

So anyway, my support group. It was just what I needed to realize I wasn’t alone and I had the rest of my life to turn things around. The therapist who led the group, his name was Steven, he was so kind and encouraging you wanted to be around him all the time. He was an ex-biker with a long silver beard that tapered off at his big belly, and when he spoke, he spoke gently. He’d cross his legs, stroke his beard, and say words of ancient wisdom in such a soothing tone you’d almost want to close your eyes and let your imagination wander. Tell you the truth, I still conjure up his voice in my head every now and again when I need it.

I made friends in the group, too, friends I could see a movie with or shoot hoops with or just meet at a café. Cafés are perfect when you don’t want to go to bars. I learned to love reading the newspaper on gray drizzly days, which is to say I found the weather amenable to self-reflection. Which is also to say I often sat in cafés by myself, and that was new for me. I had to learn that being alone didn’t have to mean being lonely, that solitude can be purifying and restorative. Those were Steven’s words,
purifying
and
restorative
, and I liked the way they sounded.

Anyway, like I said, I made friends and my best friend—I suppose you could call him my best friend—was a guy named Vijay. He was from Sri Lanka: short, dark, and skinny, you know? You’d never guess he was an ex-coke addict. He was the kind of guy who buttoned his perfectly pressed dress shirt all the way to his neck even without a tie and never rolled up his sleeves, but he’d dirty up that shirt if it meant helping a friend out of trouble. He liked to hang out under bridges. Seattle had a fair share of them if I remember and Vijay was fascinated with the way they were built. Under one of the bridges a group of art students had constructed a troll. It was made out of cement and had a Volkswagen Beetle under its arm, that’s how big it was. We spent a lot of time there, sitting on the troll’s arm, helping tourists take photos.

Now I’m taking the long way around to get to Pamela, but I’m getting there because Vijay, you see, was the one who introduced me. He was always doing some sort of volunteer work in the hospitals and I’d join him on occasion. Sometimes I played the fiddle for older folks or sang for the kids in the cancer ward. Vijay, though, he had certain people he’d visit, people who’d been in for a while and needed some company. Pamela, he said, was his favorite.
I think she is no different than you and me,
he’d say.
She is just sick, that is all, and it is most unfortunate.

And it was true. Pam was a lovely woman. She was thirty-nine when I met her and full of hope. She was witty and smart and playful, all that, but she also had ovarian cancer and she was in and out of the hospital so often the staff knew her well. When Vijay introduced me, she was recuperating after her third surgery. Vijay said she didn’t have many visitors when she was in. Her parents had passed away and she was estranged from her brother. A couple of friends stopped in, but they were hardly regular, and Pam, not wanting to deal with their pity and polite optimism, would often turn them away.

We took to each other immediately. I was shy at first, not knowing exactly how to be around her, all things considered, but Pam told me right off under no circumstances was I to pussyfoot about or she would send me away, too.
Stomp, don’t tiptoe, is that it?
I said.
Exactly
, she said.
Belly laugh, don’t giggle
. And from that moment I was hooked on Pamela Crane.

When she had to be at the hospital, I’d sit by her side and we’d talk about everything there was to talk about. Everything going on in the world was of interest to Pam, she was a real newshound, especially science stuff, like new inventions and discoveries in space and climate changes. She asked Vijay about bridges and me about Irish music and the three of us would play Boggle for hours making them feel like minutes.

And sometimes, between hospital visits, I’d meet her out at the lake or at the mall. She’d get tired easily but she’d never say so. She’d just sit somewhere as if she simply wanted to slow down and take in the scenery.

And then one day, Vijay called me and said I should meet him at the hospital, that he had something to tell me. By the way he sounded I was too worried to wait and made him tell me right away what it was. He said Pam had been admitted to the hospice wing. I said I didn’t understand what that meant. He said it meant she had decided to forgo any more medical tests or treatments and it was now a matter of time. He hesitated before he said that last bit and I could tell he was fighting back tears. I wanted to know how much time. I may have even said this too loudly, for I had tears in me, too. He said he didn’t know, but patients admitted to hospice usually don’t have more than six months. But then he said she seemed strong, able to walk about still, so maybe . . . but he didn’t finish his thought.
What do we do?
I asked.
We be there for her
, he said. He said they’d help control her pain and make her as comfortable as possible and all we could do was be supportive.

This is hard for me to talk about. I used to have to collect myself each time I visited because Pam didn’t like tears. I’d stand outside her door, take a deep breath, and try and clear my head. At the beginning, it was okay. We continued talking and playing games and watching TV together like we did before, and if she was short of breath I called the nurse and if she was tired I’d read while she took a nap. The first time she woke up and found me still there she chastised me, saying surely I had better things to do than hang around while she slept, but I could see how happy it made her and from then on I wanted to be there every time she woke. I wanted to see her happy.

Sometimes Vijay would bring his new girlfriend, Yasmin, by so the four of us could play bridge. She was a petite Jamaican woman. They joked that they were the most unlikely couple and I think maybe they were. Pam liked being with the three of us. She liked our different accents, she said, it was like her own private little UN.

And that’s how it went until one Sunday afternoon Vijay and Yasmin came by to tell us they had just gotten engaged. We were elated and toasted to their happiness and heard the whole story of the proposal and whatnot and at some point we quieted down and Pam had a lost look about her. I asked what was the matter and she said nothing at first, and then, almost as an aside to no one in particular, she said the one thing in her life she would regret is not having a wedding, that she had always envisioned herself married with children at the age of forty. And before anyone could say anything else I cried out to Pam,
Marry me
. She just shook her head vehemently. I leaned down on one knee beside her bed.
Will you marry me
, I said. She said,
Stop, be serious
. I said,
I have never been more serious in my life
, and I meant it.

It’s a complicated thing, what was going on in my head. I suppose part of it was that asking for Pam’s hand in marriage didn’t seem as significant a request as it might have to others. I had made such a mess of the institution that it felt as if I had rendered it meaningless. I thought I would never seriously marry again. But then I thought, if marriage can mean so much to this woman I care for who’s dying, why not? I can do this for her. I wanted so desperately to do this for her, to give her this gift.

Well, Pam knew all about my marriages and she was a smart woman.
Thank you for asking
, she said,
but I told you . . . no pity
. I said pity had nothing to do with it. I said I’d been roaming around for years looking for contentment and I finally found it right here by her side.
Please
, I said,
I love you
. And I did love her, though I knew by then that love was complicated and I hadn’t yet found the kind of love that is jam-packed with all the meanings it could contain, but I had said it before and felt comfortable saying it again. Vijay then came up with the idea of having a double wedding and when the excitement of such an idea took off among the three of us, Pam allowed herself to be swept up in our joy. When Vijay and Yasmin left and Pam and I had a moment alone, Pam finally said her official yes, she would marry me.
But promise me
, she said,
after I’m gone you won’t settle for mere contentment.
You deserve more from life, Rory
. I thought about that for a long time.