The Wife's Tale (43 page)

She was not caught by her reflection but sought it out in the closet mirror door, dropping her robe from her shoulders as
she approached. She remembered that girl, Mary Brody, lonely and uncertain. The young bride with her secret. The wife she’d
become. A lifetime consumed by hunger. She was no longer that woman. She saw beauty in her form, its subtle animations, its
mysterious intentions and universal conclusions. Like the brown hills undulating on the horizon. The cresting ocean waves.
Her head did not ache. Her heart did not flutter. She felt she might be electrocuted by the light she felt within.

In the darkness she found her way out to the swimming pool and eased her legs into the cool water. Floating beneath the stars,
she thought of the day she’d quit her job at Raymond Russell’s. Stock-taking day.
You’ve come a long way, baby
, she told herself, then realized that the slogan came from an advertisement for cigarettes and was deceptive in its congratulations
to the liberated woman.

Remembering the magazine questionnaires that condensed celebrated lives, Mary decided that she would edit most of her responses.
To the question
Greatest Adventure?
she now had an answer: Mary Gooch had climbed to the top of Golden Hills. Battled her beast. Searched for God. Found acceptance.
Biggest Regret?
She was through with regrets. And to the question
Greatest Love?
She would keep Gooch with her in a locket around her neck. A graphic on a T-shirt. His name emblazoned on the back window
of a car.

Her potential cheered from the trees shivering beyond the pool as she considered her future. She could climb Everest, join
Greenpeace. Go to college, learn Spanish, read the classics. Vote. She recalled Ms. Bolt’s admonitions as she saw the path
before her rising and falling, making sharp turns over ragged cliffs. No worn broadloom. No comfortable rut. A dazzling existence
beckoning with uncertainty. Proof that there are miracles.

Tomorrow came, and Mary rose like the phoenix in the timid light of dawn. She wrapped Jack’s old robe around her body and
moved into the kitchen and toward the refrigerator. She was hungry. Not starving. Not craving. Not jonesing. Just hungry.
The way people get hungry. She opened the cupboard and found a can of tuna. She cut slices of tomato and avocado and took
some grainy bread from the freezer. She sat down at the table and ate the food slowly, chewing and swallowing carefully, considering
the nuance of tastes and textures, satisfied by the modest amount. There was no beast in her gut, gatekeeper or otherwise.

There was just Mary Gooch, eating enough.

I wish to thank those women in my professional life who’ve guided me over the years as together we’ve published three novels.
I’m especially grateful for the critical eye of my longtime agent, Denise Bukowski, for her frankness in discussion, her wise
counsel, and her friendship beyond work. I’m also thankful to the talented editors that helped shape
Rush Home Road
and
The Girls
, and whose insights were critical to the final draft of
The Wife’s Tale:
Judy Clain from Little, Brown and Company; Diane Martin from Knopf Canada; Lennie Goodings and Ursula Doyle from Virago UK.

Thanks also to Michael Pietsch of Little, Brown and Company; Louise Dennys of Knopf Canada; and Richard Beswick of Virago.
Sharon Klein, Marion Garner, Deirdre Molina, Carolyn O’Keefe, Heather Fain, David Whiteside, Nathan Rostron, Jericho Buenida
and Gena Gorrell, my thanks to you, too.

On a more personal note, I want to express gratitude to my children, whose love is divine, and to my husband of twenty-five
years, who inspires me still. As my research for this book consisted mostly of conversation and observation, I thank my parents,
Judy and Phil; my brothers, Todd and Curt; Kelley (my sister-friend); Sherry and Joyce, my two oldest and dearest; and Allegra.
Thanks as well to my husband’s family and to the many friends, not all of them wives, or even women, with whom I’ve shared
confidence over the years, and who contributed to the story of
The Wife’s Tale
in ways they couldn’t know.

Once again, I owe a debt to southwestern Ontario, in whose memory I find Baldoon County. Finally, I wish to thank my tribe
in southern California, the folks in my adopted home beyond the Santa Monica mountains, and most especially the group of mothers
from a Topanga school who welcomed this transplanted Canadian into their fold as I wrote the story of an outsider searching
for her place.

L
ORI
L
ANSENS
was born and raised in Chatham, Ontario, a small Canadian town with a remarkable history and a collection of eccentric characters,
which became the setting for her first two bestselling novels. Living with her family in southern California now, she could
not resist the pull of her fictitious “Baldoon County” when she set out to write
The Wife’s Tale.
She took the journey, along with her main character, from Canada to the Pacific Coast of America, where she enjoys the sunshine,
and has learned a thing or two about transformation.