72. Then Jade
THEN: JADE
My worry over my husband’s possibly being unfaithful led me to my first true friend.
It was an unusual way for two women to meet, but my friendship with Jade was perhaps the most prosaic relationship of my life.
We were two women of a similar age with a similar outlook on life, bound together by our alikeness and mutual affection.
But before I welcomed her into my home, I sought her out and accused her of stealing my husband.
I began to notice Avery left for the smithy early on some mornings. And on those same mornings, he would return later. I also began to notice him walk into Nyossa on his own when he thought I was distracted in the gardens or pressing oils in the house.
What I mostly took note of was the smell of fish about him.
It was slight and barely there, but I could scent it now and then, and it confused me.
Fish did not bite in the river as it ran through Sheridan.
They were not lured in by any bait, nor did they get caught in nets.
The fast pace of the rush that spun my father’s waterwheel and ground the town’s wheat into flour did not allow for easy fishing. The butcher in town never sold them.
I had often thought that the slower creeks, streams, and tide pools of Nyossa would have made for excellent fishing, but I had not the skill nor the equipment to do so.
When he brought a fish home, I was beside myself with confusion. I decided to open a door for him, allowing for him to offer up some explanation.
“Where did you get such a treat?” I said, watching him gut the silvery thing on my worktable as I gathered what herbs would roast best on lighter meat than poultry or pork.
Avery hesitated and then said, “Butcher. Someone had a lucky fishing day, maybe down or upstream, further outside town?”
I scented the lie on the air the same way I smelled the fish.
One day, I followed him into Nyossa.
He was inelegant in the forest, despite knowing the territory along the farm well. He did not step with caution, and his progress was so loud he didn’t even begin to hear me, twigs cracking beneath his heavy tread. His skill was for a forge, not stealth in the wild.
He took a winding footpath that I rarely went down as it never yielded to anything but stinging nettles, which were abundant in other parts of the forest. And because I had never ventured far down it, I had never found that past several bends in the path sat a shed in a small clearing made by two felled trees and a tributary of the river.
The shed was shabby, but the roof was packed thickly with vines and moss, and someone had planted flowers along the edges of it.
I squatted between two knotted trees and watched him.
He called out a greeting and the door, which was a flap of cloth, was pulled back. A slim woman that seemed to be several winters younger than me stepped outside, a smile on her pretty face.
“I’ve your needle and thread, lady of the fish,” he said and handed her something small I could not make out.
“Oh thank you,” she sighed. “I don’t know what happened to my needle. Was it hard for you to obtain?”
“I acted like I was on an errand for my wife.”
The woman nodded.
“You should be ashamed,” I said aloud, a frog in my throat.
They did not hear me because Avery had put his hands on his hips and said he had never had trout and that, as he was nearing forty, he’d like to at least try it, and could she get some trout for him?
The woman said, “I only can take what the goddess gives me in the rivers. I cannot custom fish for you.”
“Well, I’ll have to wait for trout, then. What did you give me last time?”
“Pike. It’s apparently a favorite freshwater fish in Tintar.”
“Well I can see why. Me and the wife enjoyed it very much. You know you don’t have to give me a fish as payment. I’m happy to make the sale at the butcher and run your errands. It’s no bother.”
“Well. It is no bother for me to catch one more fish.”
As they bid each other farewell, Avery took one of her hands and kissed the back of it, bowing over it dramatically.
I stood and whirled on my feet, crashing through the brush, not caring what noise I made.
At a run, I returned to the farm, too angry to cry, too shocked to speak.
I had seen and accepted some of my husband’s flaws, particularly his love of drink, but a wandering eye had never been one.
I was at my courses, my cycle’s pains having just begun.
It was a day away from my blood. Had I not caught my husband kissing another, younger woman’s hand, I would have still been in a foul mood that day.
I let myself in the gate and stood in the garden, my palms crossed over my chest like Magda had once taught me, as I tried to breathe. A quarter of an hour later, when I heard his approach, graceless and unskilled, I turned towards the tree line and shouted, “Who is she?”
He startled, eyes wide, and then his face fell. “It’s not what you think.”
I began shouting.
Avery stood on the other side of the fence, looking stricken and unsure of himself. He put his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes.
“Robbie. Robbie!” he hollered over me. “I’m not seeing another woman. I’m not breaking my wedding vows. I can’t believe you would think that of—”
“Why wouldn’t I think that of you?”
“Because I am me,” he cried. “I’m your man. I’ve been your man for—what? Five? Six winters now? My gods, woman.”
“You can’t even remember,” I said wildly, hands flung out in vindication.
“Oh for gods’ sake,” he seethed. “Robbie, I am insulted.”
“Who is she?”
“It’s not my story to tell. I cannot say.”
“That is not an answer!”
He gave a sort of frustrated growl. “Listen to me. She is a woman who lives in Nyossa, who fishes. The butcher won’t—The butcher won’t buy from her.
I noticed her walking to and from the forest on foot—which is no short journey, mind you—into town to sell her catch.
And she has to return to the forest with it because he will not buy from her.
She needs the coin to buy things. That’s all I am doing. I am simply a go-between for her.”
“So why won’t you say who she is? And what stranger has been living this close to us unbeknownst to me? That is frightening.”
He held up a hand. “I need to think on this, Robbie. You are my wife and come before all others, but this is not a simple thing.”
I returned to my obscenities, stamping my foot in the garden.
He decided to shout some back at me. We went on like this for an hour. And then, I decided to take matters into my own hands, and I charged out of the gate and into the woods.
“Robbie, no!” he yelled behind me, but I was quicker.
I heard him in the distance, as I drew closer to the thorny footpath he had taken earlier, grumbling, swearing, and calling out my name.
When I reached the felled trees and the shambling shed on the bank of the tributary river, I stepped up to the curtain she used as a door and called out, “You had better come outside and explain yourself.”
There was a moment where only the gurgle of the water and the chirp of birdsong could be heard.
“I am Robbie Finch, Avery’s wife. You’ll come outside and tell me who in hell you are and what you think gives you the right—”
The curtain drew back, and she peered outside.
Closer now, I could see the contours of her face. Her lips were proud, oddly set in a soft, shy face. Rich, brown hair, shining in the sunlight, fell around her shoulders. Something about her looked familiar, but I could not place her.
There was some dirt on her cheek. Her fingernails were chewed raw. Her dress was worn and fit her poorly, too tight in the shoulders and loose everywhere else. But she was still attractive.
Before she could speak, I burst into tears. “I suppose he just wants someone younger now,” I wept. “And thinner. I’ve gotten so thick as time passes. Just thicker and thicker. My backside is a barn door, I feel. And you are—You are so pretty.”
She stood clutching the curtain, blinking at me.
Avery crashed into the clearing from the path. “Oh, shit and hell, Robbie,” he sighed, looking from me to the woman. Then he turned to her. “I’m sorry, Jade. I tried to keep my promise.”
She shook her head and smiled. “No, I understand. This was an unusual arrangement.”
“I don’t think,” I sniveled, “it is so unusual for a man to leave his wife and take up with a younger woman.” I put my hands over my eyes and continued to weep.
“My gods,” groused Avery.
“This is my fault,” said the woman named Jade.
“No,” he said. “It’s mine. I could have thought of something to say to Robbie. A man shouldn’t lie to his wife.”
I withdrew my hands to glare at him.
“Could you—Could you give us a moment?” she said, stepping out from the shed and closer to me, but her question was for him.
“I suppose I can,” he said, eyeing me like I might hurt her.
I had half a mind to, now that I thought of it.
We watched him retreat back down the path, far enough to give us privacy but before the first bend behind the trees.
He stood with his hands on his head and watched me.
“Do you recognize me?” she asked.
I wiped my nose and nodded. “I do not know who you are, but you do remind me of someone.”
“I think you knew my brother. Kent?”
“Kent Aldred?” I squinted at her, seeing it now. “Kent has only littler brothers. They’re all married now and in town. I don’t understand.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, as if I had just delivered the most heartbreaking news. “I was born Kevin. But I go by Jade now. Jade Atwood.”
I stood and looked at her. “Kevin died from plague.”
Jade Atwood nodded. “That is what my family was told, yes.”
Staring at her was not giving me any answers, but I was too thunderstruck to take in what she was saying, that she claimed a dead child as her identity.