Just Between Us Wives

Just Between Us Wives

No doubt you have heard of my father, Rip van Winkle, whose disappearance into the Catskill Mountains and subsequent resurrection Mr. Washington Irving immortalized in print, and who was widely welcomed back to our town in the colonies when he miraculously returned after twenty years.

If you have read Mr. Irving’s tale, you know me by my married name, Judith Gardenier.

You know my mother only as Dame Van Winkle, and by the loathsome sobriquets bestowed upon her by my father’s cronies and passed down as gospel in Mr. Irving’s account: Virago. Termagant. No doubt a few other foul terms he could not record in print.

My mother’s name, for the record, was Lottie Van Winkle, née Lottie van Dijk.

Her secret story, the one you do not know yet, is the story of a wife. It is the story that Mr. Irving never bothered to tell, because apparently he never bothered to wonder about it, and hence never bothered to discover it. Or if he did, never bothered to believe it.

It is the story my mother transcribed and hid in our family Bible shortly after my father disappeared those many years ago. Would that I had found her story earlier! If I had, I might not have taken my father in and cared for him in his old age after he returned from the wilderness.

Perhaps my mother thought I would open the Bible more often than I do. But I married a farmer, and that life keeps me busy, although I do find time to grow my herb garden. You never know when herbs will come in handy.

In any case, I shall let my mother tell you her story in her own words.

#

I remember the day in Rotterdam when I told my parents that Rip wanted to court me. Father slammed his stein down. “What kind of a name is Van Winkle, anyway? We can trace our blood to Van Rensselaers and Stuyvesants.”

Mother nodded in agreement. “And what kind of a name is Rip?”

But Rip gradually won them over, with his gifts of tulip bulbs and oranges and his promise of a wonderful life in the Kaatskills, as we called them then. Soon I was Dame Van Winkle, for better or for worse.

Mostly worse.

Our two-month sail from Rotterdam to the Kaatskills, near the Hudson River, left me well-acquainted with my new husband—especially the knuckles of his right hand.

That acquaintanceship deepened in our Sleepy Hollow cottage. Rip loved his ale, always staying just sober enough to land his fist where it wouldn’t show. Never on the face.

I learned to stay out of Rip’s way, waiting for him to stumble to the tavern to drink with his mates or go hunting with Wolf, his dog. Soon enough, I was mother to Rip Junior and Judith, and labeled as the village nag, thanks to Rip’s lies to his cronies. I heard them mutter even worse names as I walked past the tavern, on the way to trade a few eggs for other goods in our small market square. Somehow Rip managed to paint himself as the victim.

One day I paid a visit to Goodwife Rika, the local healer. She invited me into her small cottage and waited silently until I spoke: “Do you have something for . . . sore muscles?”

My face grew hot with shame as Goodie Rika peered at me and gently prodded my torso, as if she could see through my faded linen dress to my bruised shoulders and stomach, the cracked rib that rewarded each breath with a stab of pain. Nodding slowly, she withdrew her hand and took a small burlap bag from a box in her cupboard.

“A powder from dried arnica blossoms,” she explained.

I opened the bag and inhaled the powder’s piney scent. “Should I brew a tisane?”

“Nee!” cried Goodie Rika, in frantic Dutch. “No drink nor eat arnica! Make you very sick—maybe even vergif—poison. Just mix powder in butter to make ointment, rub ointment where hurt.”

She took a dozen eggs in payment.

Later that week, Rip left to squirrel-hunt with Wolf, demanding provisions for a three-day trip. Of course I dutifully prepared a satchel of victuals for him, along with a leather drinking pouch holding a generous pour of ale.

For three nights, I luxuriated in his absence, enjoying the kind of solitude and peace that usually came only after Rip ate a gluttonous supper and drank himself into his nightly stupor.

Each night of his absence, I fed the children and put them to bed soon after supper. Three days without Rip eating most of our food noticeably enriched our cupboard. For a change, they did not go to bed hungry. We even had half a loaf of bread left. Plus most of a cask of ale, which surely Rip would have drained by now.

The third night of his absence, I sat tending the fireplace, peering out the window at the full moon, when I heard a scratch at the door. Rip had taken our gun, so I grabbed a log from the hearth before cautiously opening the door.

“Wolf!" I cried. “Where did you come from, jongen? Where is Rip?” The dog padded in, whimpering and panting, and circled around me, as if herding a sheep, trying to lead me out the front door.

I managed to calm him with a few reassuring words. “All right, we will find him. First I get you some food and water. You look fair starved.”

I fed Wolf some scraps from supper and a bowl of water and checked that the children were still sleeping. While he ate, I put on my sturdy shoes and a heavy shawl. Then we left the house, Wolf leading the way through the darkened town. Fortunately the full moon lit our path through the Sleepy Hollow clearing, then deep into the woods on the far side.

Finally I saw the silhouette of a figure half-sitting, half-lying against a tree, his hat pulled over his face, a rifle beside him. Wolf trotted ahead and sat down next to the man, then looked back at me and whimpered.

I walked toward them slowly, but the man did not stir. I reached out and pushed his hat away from his face.

Rip.

I shook his shoulder gently, then more forcefully, but got no response. He slumped over sideways when I took my hand away.

I surveyed the ground around him. Saw the satchel I had packed with ham and buttered bread. Empty now.

The leather drinking pouch I had filled with ale for him. Also empty. That salty ham always did give Rip an extra thirst.

Noticed the dried residue around his lips, the puddle of vomit a few feet away.

Put my hand to his chest, felt it barely rise, heard the faint rattle as he exhaled.

Leaned in; caught the faintest whiff of pine on his rattling breath.

Stood up, wiped my palms together in a gesture of dismissal. Smiled at Wolf.

“Not quite gone yet, Wolf, but soon. Just a very long sleep, een diepe coma, if he is lucky. Something more permanent, if he is not.”

Wolf hung back, confused, but finally followed me as I turned my back on the body and walking toward home.

“Be glad he did not share his victuals and ale with you, Wolf, or you would be back there with him.”

The next morning, I left a small, half-empty burlap pouch on Goodie Rika’s doorstep, with a note: “Maybe another wife can use this.”