Esmé Wang - The Border of Paradise

Happy things. We had Easters and birthdays. David loved Easter. We dyed eggs by making wire loops and dipping them in Rit. But the game, it turned out, was in hiding the eggs. He insisted on hiding them in tree branches so that the children would have to climb. We celebrated everyone’s birthday. We did not celebrate the Lunar New Year. I worry that this is harder than I expected it to be. By which I mean, the difficulty with which I am trying to remember our joys.

So when you say, “Did you ever wish that he would just end it?” do you expect me to say yes? What do you see me as? How human do you think I am?

Now that he’s dead I wonder why it terrified me so much more than, say, the threat of illness or a car accident, why his repeat attempts made me frantic at almost every moment of our married life. The impending suicide of my husband was a fear that was completely unlike, say, my worries that William would suffocate in his sleep. With David I learned that suicide was an utterly uncontrollable act disguised as the most controllable death possible. I have seen Western movies, and I will say that my marriage was like riding on a horse alongside a man who is on a horse that is not only unbroken and wild, but also has no care for itself, and will buck in any way possible to get its rider off. David had his hands on the reins, but the horse didn’t care. He could stay on for a while but only for so long.

It made me miserable to be on guard always, to never say a word that could be interpreted as unkind, to do everything he wanted whether I liked it or not, to encourage him, to shield our children from his madness and yet to be unsuccessful in my poor attempts, to feel useless, to live with him, love him, be a dutiful wife, and know that it made no difference.

And what difference did it make? I would have gladly been miserable forever if I could only ensure that he would die of the flu. So I was doomed to ridiculous mental calculations and pleas: David, could we remove the ceiling beams? Could we have a knifeless household, and tear meat with our fingers? Can you not go into the shed with that razor blade? Could all the belts go into a locked box; could all the shoelaces be removed and disposed of; could I have you hand over that tie because you don’t wear ties anyway? Please can I follow you from dawn till dawn so that I know you’re all right? A few times he snapped at me. He said, “I’m not a child,” and I said quickly, “Of course not,” but it would have been so much easier if he were a child, and I could trap him in a room forever.

The children were eating . Steam rose from their bowls in the cold morning kitchen. William had one knee up and had propped his forearm on that knee while he blew on the spoon. Already he was starting to develop David’s broody look, which I thought would please my husband. While the children and I ate with pickles — they were American pickles and not the right pickles, which are small slices with a green-black exterior, but American pickles were better than nothing — David stood by the sink. He had said he wasn’t hungry. He had lost weight, and I was worried about the way his bones were showing through his open collar.

“Ai, sit properly,” I said to William, “you look like an animal.”

William kicked his legs under the table. “What kind of animal?”

“Not Noah’s,” David said.

“What?”

My husband said, “No, you’re not.”

(I did know, at that point, who Noah was — David was reading to them from the Bible. He was starting from the old book first. But I didn’t know what he meant when he spoke of Noah then.)

David reached to his side and threw an orange at William’s head. There was a fruit bowl on the counter by the sink; we kept it there to remind the children to wash fruit before they ate it. The orange hit William in the temple with a muted, dense sound, and then the fruit hit the table, clanking and heavy, and William, who had poor reflexes, reeled. To his credit, he didn’t cry, and the orange rolled onto the floor.

It could have been a moment we could have ignored, however difficult it would be. It was almost funny. It could be read as funny. But David said, “I hope you drown, I hope you drown,” and he began to head out the back door. We were all so stunned that none of us did anything, including Gillian, who was looking with round eyes. I mentally begged David to come back in and apologize. But no. He was on the porch, and it was snowing. He was in his undershirt and worn khakis. He was not wearing shoes and we all knew that this was ridiculous. The three of us called for him to come back. The orange was under the table, forgotten. He had never hit any one of us before. Had he meant to hurt William? The entire incident seemed so devoid of emotion, like an inversion of a Beijing opera. I told William to watch his sister, grabbed my coat, and put on my shoes. I ran out to follow David into the field. I kept thinking about how cold his feet must be. I was worried about frostbite.

And as I chased his back I thought, my heart banging like a fist on a door, If he goes away, Gillian can be William’s tongyangxi. I will not be alone. Gillian is beautiful. She will be William’s tongyangxi. They will love each other as David and I do, together in our home, and I will not ever have to be alone.

Now when I enter the children’s room, and they are lying in their beds on opposite sides early in the morning, with the curtains drawn and their faces barely showing, I can hear their breaths in tandem, the sound of one sound. William can’t sleep when his feet are showing; he must always have them covered. Gillian’s developing breasts form small hills beneath her sheet. Here is her hair that I brush one hundred times every morning. I adhere to the sound of their sleep not just because I know they are alive when I hear their inhalations and exhalations, but because in sleep they are simply there.

After the incident with the orange I told David that I wanted to learn things. When he asked me what I meant, I said, “Well, you never taught me to drive.”

“What else?” he asked. His mind would wander off at times, but sometimes he seemed to be present, and when he was present, he was less upset. We were in the bathtub. At that time he refused to bathe unless I was in the bathtub with him. I think he was afraid of the water. I always got in with him, and I washed his hair in the manner that I washed, say, Gillian’s. In the bathtub I couldn’t help but look at David’s body. He was never in the mood for sex anymore; yet while the two of us were in the bathtub, naked and wet, I felt myself stirring and unable to help myself. I still lusted after him, can you imagine? If I forgot that he in fact looked awful and I didn’t see his bones rising through his skin and his wasted and soft muscles. And I was no longer conscious of his hand, which he kept wrapped in bandages most of the time now. He was making small gestures toward sanity. He tried; he really did make efforts. I still loved him.

“Mostly I need to learn how to drive, so that I can go into town. I also need to be able to get money if I need it,” I said. “Right now I need to ask money from you when I need it.”

He was quiet. He stirred the water with his good hand; the other hand was draped outside of the bathtub, where I couldn’t see it.