The Wives

THIRTY-TWO

I leave the diner an hour later with nowhere to go. I don’t want to go back to the Cottonmouth house with its peeling wallpaper and musty smell. After Regina told Seth I was in Portland, he’d waste no time driving here. To what—reason with me? Drag me back to Seattle? I’m not ready to see him. I could go home, drive the two hours and beat him to it. I’d have enough time to grab some of my things and go stay with my parents. But my mother had not believed me when I was in the hospital and I tried to tell her the truth. I have no idea what their communication has been like over the last few days. Most likely, Seth had told her a partial truth: that I disappeared in the middle of the night, and that they need to find me before I hurt myself. I’m on my own. The confrontation with Seth inevitable, I’m going to have to face him soon, but Regina has asked for more time, and I’m going to give her more time. What she told me while sitting under the fluorescent lights of Larry’s had given me chills, rolled my stomach, made me doubt myself. My coffee had grown cold, a film appearing over the top as I slouched in the booth and listened to the dry recounting of her experience.

I drive until I see a shopping plaza that houses a large chain grocery store. It doesn’t open for another few hours. I park in the back of the building, out of sight of the street, where I don’t feel exposed, and recline my seat all the way back so I can sleep. Just a few hours.

I wake with a start to someone pounding on my car window. I bolt upright, groggy and disoriented.

“You can’t park here,” a man barks, peering through the window.

He’s wearing an orange and yellow vest, and while he pounds again he looks over his shoulder, distracted. I flinch as his fist hits the window close to my face. His fist is big and tan; it matches his shoulders, which are wide.

When he looks back at me, he says, “You’re blocking the way.”

I look behind him and see a garbage truck idling in the alley, waiting to get to the dumpster that my car is blocking. Without raising my seat, I turn on the ignition and hit the gas, driving around to the front of the store. I pull into another spot, thrown off by the sudden wake-up and the brute of a man who did it. Scrubbing the sleep from my eyes, I yawn. I need to go somewhere private, where I can think without garbage men screaming at me. I decide on the public library; they’ll have computers I could use. I’d driven past it the last time I was in the city having dinner with Seth; the elegant brick-and-stone structure caught my eye with its old-school beauty.

I can’t remember the street it’s on or the name of the branch, I have to rely on my memory to find it. I have to rely on my instincts to find it. It takes me forty minutes of weaving up and down the busy Portland streets, trying to remember exactly where I’d seen it. When I finally catch sight of the building, a group of homeless men are packing up their belongings, getting ready to traverse the city for the day. Since it’s still early, the lot used for parking is relatively empty, and I find a spot close to the building. The smell of urine hits me as soon as I step out of the car. Also, it’s freezing without a jacket. I hurry toward the building and find the doors unlocked. Breathing a sigh of relief, I duck inside, shivering, clutching my orange sweater around my fingers like gloves. The interior of the library is all open space underneath a domed skylight. I walk quickly through the lobby and toward the computers.

“Two hours,” she says. “No eating or drinking.” Her voice is dry, brittle and unsympathetic. She’s more recording than person. When I nod compliantly, she eyes me suspiciously, like I might be hiding my breakfast underneath my sweater, but I’m allowed into the room.

There is an elderly man already seated at one of the computers, wearing a fedora and jabbing intently at the keyboard with two pointer fingers. He doesn’t look up when I pass him and so I have time to stare at his screen. A dating website. He’s writing messages to a prospective partner. Good for you! I think. Seth would have called me nosy, made fun of my “all-seeing eye” as he called it. I have to remind myself that Seth’s opinion no longer counts, and that if it weren’t for my nosiness I’d still be in the dark, married to a man I only thought I knew.

I find a computer near the back and slide into the plastic chair. My mouth is gritty from the diner coffee and nap in the car, my hair a greasy mess. The librarian on this floor keeps shooting glances at me like I might run off at any minute with one of the outdated computers tucked underneath my arm. I tap my finger impatiently on the desk as I wait for the internet to load, glancing around every few minutes like Seth might walk in and catch me here. The screen finally pops up and I type in my first search, chin resting on my palm. There are three things I have come here to learn about, and Seth’s parents are first up: Mama and Papa Polygamy! I type their names into the search bar, the names that Regina gave me: Perry and Phyllis Ellington, along with murder/suicide. There are no articles, no newspaper coverage. The only thing I can find is an obituary dating their births and deaths, their surviving child listed as Seth Arnold Ellington. According to Seth, there were other siblings from his other mothers, siblings much younger than him, since his father married his other wives when Seth was a teenager. But since Perry and Phyllis lived outside of the norms of society, there is little information on how to find Seth’s half siblings, who are now barely teenagers themselves. Perry’s legal marriage was to Seth’s mother, who now shared a grave with him. The only people who knew what truly happened to Perry and Phyllis were the other wives...and my husband.

Abandoning that search, I think about the drug Regina had mentioned at the diner: misoprostol. A drug used to start labor, used in conjunction with mifepristone, it is said to be effective in bringing about abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy. Taken by mouth, it is safe to use until the forty-ninth day of pregnancy, after which it proves to bring on serious risks in the mother. My hands shake as I think back to the day my baby died. I move the mouse from link to link. I feel cold from the inside out, like my internal warmth has been snuffed out by the information in front of me. Used later in pregnancy it’s more dangerous for the mother, causing low blood pressure, loss of consciousness and infections after the abortion has occurred. I let go of the mouse and lean back in my chair, covering my eyes with my palms. The day of my miscarriage, Seth had stopped at the gas station for snacks. I remember the paper cups of tea he carried out to the car, how grateful I’d been for such a caring husband. The tea, the tea he said was sent by his dead mother. Oh my God. If Regina was right, it was Seth who caused the miscarriage.

The pain I feel is almost unbearable. At the time of my miscarriage, I’d not seen the medical report from the hospital; I hadn’t wanted to. Seth had been my protector during those days: grieving with me, sheltering me from the things I didn’t want to hear. I wouldn’t have managed to get through that time without him. He’d told me that his decision for a second wife came when Regina decided that she didn’t want children. Why then would he end the life of his unborn child, endangering my life, too? Nothing makes sense. I want to pull at my own hair, scream from frustration. There can be no answers until Seth gives them to me. I want to see my medical files. I want to hear it all.

My last search is the most painful, prompted by Regina’s last words before we parted ways outside of the diner:

“I think there’s something wrong with him.”