“Edith say you are Bruno’s wife?”
Anna smirked. “Sure.” Niklas’s English was clunky. His “Edith” sounded like “eat it,” and he dropped articles in his speech as frequently as Karl confused vocabulary. Anna stared, not knowing what else to offer. The Austrian accent was difficult for her to get past. Anna listened but avoided his direct gaze by focusing her eyes on his forehead.
The talk they made was tedious. Niklas spoke of Vienna, skiing, and how sometimes he did not understand the Swiss. Anna kept her face blank as she remembered the punch line of a joke that she’d heard Bruno tell about the Austrians. She’d forgotten the joke’s lead-in. Anna traced the rim of her wineglass with her thumb and wondered what time it was and how much longer Bruno planned on staying.
THE WEEKEND BEFORE EDITH’S party, Anna and Mary took their children to the Greifensee, Kanton Zürich’s second largest lake, the bank of which lay no more than half a kilometer away from the Gilberts’ front door. The three boys brought along their bikes. Mary and Anna walked the path behind them. Anna pushed Polly in a stroller. Alexis stayed home.
“How did you meet Tim?”
Mary blushed. “We met in high school.”
This didn’t surprise Anna. “You’ve never been with anyone else?”
Mary shook her head. “Nope. No one else. Just Tim.” This admission seemed to shame her. Just Tim. Anna focused her gaze on the path ahead of her. Of course she’d had lovers before Bruno. College boyfriends, men she saw for a few months then dumped or, alternately, was dumped by. Male friends who, under differing circumstances, she might have seen less circumstantially. But then there was Bruno. Mary redirected the conversation. “How did you meet Bruno? How did you fall in looove?” Mary drew out the word “love” like a sixth-grade girl.
Anna answered the first question. “At a party.” This was the bland truth. They met at a party of a mutual acquaintance. Drunken groping followed on that very same night. And even now, despite differences both petty and consequential, the lusts upon which they founded their love still thrummed near the surface of their skins. The second question required some circumnavigation. Mary waited on Anna to continue. “Well, he’s handsome, and responsible …” Anna dodged the question by trailing off. Mary nodded deeply. “And,” Anna sighed the sigh of resignation, “here we are.”
“As simple as that?” Mary asked. Anna blinked. “How did he propose?”
“In an orchard. In Washington.” They walked a few steps forward. “We were on a trip.”
“How romantic!”
It should have been, Anna thought. For any other pair of lovers it would have been. A few months after they met, Anna and Bruno moved in together. A few months after that and while on vacation and walking through an apple orchard near Wenatchee, Bruno turned to Anna and said, “I think you would make a good wife for me. I think I want to marry you.” It was spur-of-the-moment and matter-of-fact. The idea crossed his mind and he spoke it aloud in the same way he might announce that he’d be up for seeing a movie. There was no ring. A thousand round, ripe apples looked on from above. I agree, Anna thought. I would make a good wife. I would mostly make a good wife. And Anna loved Bruno. Was in love with Bruno. Was in a version of love with Bruno. Inasmuch as she understood it, Anna felt confident enough to name what she felt for Bruno to be love. The sex was good and in those days that mattered as much as anything else. Anna said yes. They married two months later.
Anna felt the crush of dry grass beneath her shoes. Polly Jean fussed intermittently. “Charles!” Anna cried out. “You’re too far away—come back!” Charles couldn’t hear and didn’t turn around. Anna yelled for Victor to catch up to his brother. When he did, Charles looked back and he waved. “He’s always doing that.”
“Riding off?”
“Not paying attention.”
“Ah, a butterfly chaser! His mother’s son!” Mary giggled.
Bruno’s proposal may have been matter-of-fact, but Anna said yes without hesitation. The orchard air was peaceful. The sky was promising. The apples introduced the possibility of joy. She remembered them all: Honeycrisp, Honey Sweet, Golden Supreme, Ambrosia, Sunrise, Gala, Fortune, Keepsake. Their names so improbable, the queer potential of happiness foretold by each. Yes, Bruno, I’ll be your wife. They held hands on their walk back to the car. At the end of the path, Anna stopped to pick a black pearly pebble from a pile of lackluster others. She buffed it on her shirt and cached it in her pocket. Anna had carried that pebble with her since. It rattled around in her coin purse against the change.