The Lost Wife

ALSO BY SUSANNA MOOREMiss AluminumParadise of the Pacific: Approaching Hawai’iThe Life of ObjectsThe Big GirlsI Myself Have Seen It: The Myth of Hawai’iOne Last LookIn the CutSleeping BeautiesThe Whiteness of BonesMy Old Sweetheart THIS IS A BORZOI BOOKPUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPFCopyright © 2023 by Susanna MooreAll rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.www.aaknopf.comKnopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Moore, Susanna, author.Title: The lost wife : a novel / Susanna Moore.Description: First Edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2023.Identifiers: LCCN 2022002931 | ISBN 9780385351430 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780385351447 (ebook)Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.Classification: LCC PS3563.O667 L67 2023 | DDC 813/.54—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022002931Ebook ISBN 9780385351447This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.Cover image: Prairie Meadows Burning (detail) by George Catlin. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. / Art Resource, N.Y.Cover design by Janet Hansenep_prh_6.1_143000293_c0_r0 ContentsCoverAlso by Susanna MooreTitle PageCopyrightDedicationJune 1855May 1862July 1862August 1862September 1862October 1862December 1862Author’s NoteA Note About the Author_143000293_ For Jasper June 1855I PRETENDED TO BE ASLEEP until Ank left the room. Florence was with Ank’s sister Viola in Kingstown, and the house was quiet. When I could hear Ank in the shop, I jumped from bed and dressed, stuffing two books, a penknife, a dress, a salami, a moth-eaten tartan cape, and Maddie’s letters into a cardboard suitcase. The letters are two years old, but I have read them so many times, I know every word by heart. She says there is work to be had in the West, not just saloon-girl work like in the penny weeklies, but work you wouldn’t be ashamed to do. I wonder if she will be surprised to see me. Surprised to see I am alone. She never believed I would do it. I counted the money I’d saved, which came to forty-two dollars. I kept thirty dollars for myself and wrapped the rest in a piece of butcher’s paper, sealed it in an envelope, and addressed it.When I heard Mr. Lombardi in the alley, I invited him into the kitchen for coffee. He delivers a supply of colored glass stones to the shop on the last Monday of the month, and I was expecting him. I told him I needed to get to Boston, where my sister was ill. I have no sister, but he did not know that. If he would take me to the Fox Point station when he left, I could catch the afternoon train to Boston. When he agreed, I asked him not to tell Ank. I said I had been forbidden to see my sister, as she lived in sin with another woman. It was the worst lie I could devise.My wrist is bandaged where my husband burned me with the soldering flame, and I saw Mr. Lombardi glance at it, but he said nothing. He knew Ank did it. Everyone in our street knows Ank likes to hurt me. Viola knows. My mother knew, although she never did anything to stop it. “It is only what you deserve,” she said. “Anyone with the name Aniketos cannot be a proper Christian and has to be a foreigner, maybe even a Greek. Or worse, a Turk.” How she determined that Greeks are not Christians is a mystery, but there is a long list of mysteries where my mother is concerned. Who, for instance, is my father? She refused to tell me. Maybe he, too, is Greek, which would account for my black eyes and hair, and the faint line of fuzz above my lip. She believed that during conception, the partner who had the strongest orgasm determined the looks of the child, which suggests that my father is Greek after all. Or a Turk. And that she is as cold as ice, but I knew that.I met Mr. Lombardi on Eddy Street as we had planned. It was raining and we were soon wet through, despite the tarp he threw over us. He had a pint of whiskey in his pocket and now and then took a drink, but he did not offer me any. He dropped me at the Fox Point station, and I again reminded him that he was not to tell anyone he had seen me. When he handed down my suitcase, he slipped a half-dollar into my hand, which caused me to wonder if he believed my story after all. As I watched him turn the corner, I told myself that everything that happened from then on would be a sign. Even the rain was a sign. It would erase my footprints.I mailed the envelope and ran into the station. I arrived too late to catch the train to Albany and spent the night in the waiting room. I thought the porters who wandered in and out might not like it if I sat on one of their benches in wet clothes, so I walked in circles to keep warm, eating the salami and shaking with cold. Every time a man came through the door, I was certain it was Ank and hid my face in my sleeve, but no one bothered me, except for one man who asked if I was free for the evening.I read Maddie’s instructions for the hundredth time. Once I reach Albany, I will board an Erie Canal packet boat which will get me as far as Buffalo. In Buffalo, I am to take a lake steamer to Chicago. The fare in steerage will be three dollars. In Chicago, I am to find a place on a wagon traveling to a port on the Mississippi River called Galena. Then another steamboat from Galena to the town of Shakopee, Minnesota, where Maddie will be waiting for me.· · ·I must have fallen asleep on the train