Free The Wife Tree by Dorothy Speak Page A

shining skins, I couldn’t sleep. I crept out of bed and down to the turn in the stairs. There I saw my mother and Uncle Harper pressed together in the shadowy niche beneath the steps. They were kissing. He had pulled up my mother’s frothy skirts and thrust his hand between her legs, his arm moving with a strong, steady rhythm. Their bodies rocked together, my mother moaning softly. Then Harper dropped her skirt. His hand came away from between her thighs, glistening. When he slid the slippery fingers into my mother’s mouth, her lips closed hungrily on them.
    That night, I dreamed I was stuffing cakes into my mouth, biting down into the soft, yielding flesh, the icing smearing over my lips, over my chin, my fingers buttery with it. I awoke hot with pleasure and discovered my hand working between my legs, my fingers busy among the velvety folds. They came away fragrant and slick. Horrified, I ran to the bathroom, where I tipped the ceramic pitcher until cold water gushed into the basin. Lathering my hands with glycerine soap, I scrubbed and scrubbed until I thought my skin would fall cleanly away from my fingers like a shell from a nutmeat.
    Oh, I am choked with memories!

November 2
    Dear girls,
    …I’ve taken, in the evenings, to sitting in your father’s recliner. I’ve discovered it gives the best view of the street and of the television and the pictures on the walls, and now I realize that from this chair it would have been difficult for him to see me as I sat in my own, so that it’s possible I’ve been invisible to him all these years…
    Dear girls,
    …I’ve begun to take in the news on your father’s television, thinking it might help to sustain current events until he comes home. I’ve found it good company in the silent house and already I recognize the faces of the broadcasters. I’m learning the names of the world leaders and am able to keep the countries straight. But I do find them entertaining, these politicians. Their gravity, their narcissism, their deceitfulness amuse me…

November 3
    Dear girls,
    …You are the dupe of memory, William, I once told your father. Your mind has tricked you into forgetting that your prairie boyhood was cold and hungry and motherless…

November 4
    When I arrived in William’s room this morning I was deeply shocked to find the monitors gone, the tubes and bags and apparatus removed, his bed empty and changed, the new sheets tucked in tight, smooth and barren as the windswept prairie and looking quite final. My legs, turning rubbery, wouldn’t support me any longer and I sank down on a chair, thinking: Now, at least, I’ve been given an answer. For don’t we all long for the comfort of absolutes? But then a nurse came in and said, “What’s wrong, Mrs. Hazzard? You look very pale. Goodness! It’s not what you think. Your husband has been transferred to Second East, the chronic care ward.”
    “Are you sure he was ready?”
    “He’s out of danger now. We need his bed for the next stroke victim.”
    Down to Second East I went then, carrying only the thin cotton pyjamas in which William had been admitted and his false teeth, sealed in a brown manila envelope. But the further I travelled the more alarmed I grew. From the rooms along the hall came wails, shouts, cries of indignation and despair.
    Mummy mummy mummy mummy mummy
.
    No no no no no
.
    Martha, come and get me. For God’s sake, Martha, I’ve wet myself again!
    I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care
.
    I’m a little teapot short and stout. Just tip me over and pour me out. Fuck you fuck you fuck you
.
    On Second East there was a shocking level of noise and traffic, nurses rushing up and down the corridors with medications and instruments mysteriously wrapped in white towels, orderlieswheeling by with bins of soiled linens, with trolleys of rattling kidney pans, urinals, metal pitchers. The floors didn’t shine like mirrors as they had upstairs and there were windows here to be sure but