Ghost Wife: A Memoir of Love and Defiance

Copyright

Published by Black Inc.,

an imprint of Schwartz Media Pty Ltd

37–39 Langridge Street

Collingwood Vic 3066 Australia

email: enquiries@blackincbooks.com

http://www.blackincbooks.com

Copyright © Michelle Dicinoski 2013

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mech­anical, photo­copying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.

The National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Dicinoski, Michelle.

Ghost wife : a memoir of love and defiance / Michelle Dicinoski.

ISBN for eBook edition: 9781921870873

ISBN for print edition: 9781863955959 (pbk.)

Includes bibliographical references.

Dicinoski, Michelle.

Lesbians--Australia--Biography.

Gay couples--Legal status, laws, etc.--Australia

Same-sex marriage--Canada.

306.7663092

Book design by Peter Long

Contents

DEPARTURES

Confetti

Leaving

Ghost Stories

GOING AFTER STRANGE FLESH

Homes

Equals Nothing

TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHERS

Beginnings

Inheritances

HIDE AND SEEK

People

Writing Home

Breaking Out, Breaking In

NOT LIKE THAT

Telling

Giving Accounts

OUTWARD AND VISIBLE

At the Threshold

Vowing

BOLD

Ice Harvest

Crossing

FOREVER

Gifts

The Belly of the World

Returning

Afterword

Acknowledgements

References

DEPARTURES

Confetti

Tiny snowflakes flew like confetti as I ran down Spadina Avenue. The Toronto wind slapped my dress against my thighs and tousled my armful of flowers. Back home in Australia, it was the second day of summer. Brisbane would be brilliant and hot, the sky impossibly blue. Here in Toronto, the temperature was below zero and the sky was low and grey.

I ran slowly on the icy sidewalk and curled my arm around the tulips and tiger lilies. My friend Egg ran beside me with handfuls of posies, her camera bag swinging from her shoulder. City Hall was close, but not close enough. Somewhere inside that building, a mile or two away, Heather was waiting for me.

I scanned the street for a taxi. We’re going to be late! Heather will think I’m not coming.

My words came out steamy in the freezing air.

We’ll get there, said Egg. Don’t worry.

I had come halfway around the world for what came next. I had come halfway around the world to be able to marry my girlfriend. In just a few minutes, everything would change. But right then, all I knew was this: I was close and far, close and far, and there was still more running to do.

Leaving

People go missing from my family all the time. They simply disappear. I’ve known this since I was a little kid. Grandfathers, sisters, brothers, aunts – they just vanish. But no one ever told me that disappearances are never total. Absence takes up space. You don’t notice it right away, but traces of what’s vanished always stay behind to haunt those who remain.

If you watch me there on the icy Toronto street, am I about to be lost, or about to be found? Am I running to some place, or from another?

*

The night before our departure was hot and airless. In the backyard of our Brisbane house, the cat stalked grasshoppers. Flying foxes shrieked in the mango tree. Our housemates, Dave and Emma, drank beer on the back verandah. Later on, Heather and I would join them, but for now we were packing our suitcases.

Dressed in a singlet and short skirt, I packed thermal underwear, a windproof vest, woolly scarves. I didn’t know if my clothes would be warm enough: I’d never been anywhere cold enough for snow. I was trying to imagine the winters of Boston and Toronto, but that was impossible in the press of a Brisbane night.

Heather was her usual, unflappable self, all plans and lists. She had typed up our itinerary to post to my parents, so they wouldn’t worry too much – even though just months earlier my mother was still referring to Heather as That Woman. Tonight, I was trying to avoid all thought of this dismissal, and what lay behind it. I wanted to think about what came next: a future that would begin in Heather’s past, in the United States, where she had lived until two years ago, and in Canada, where she spent her childhood summers.

Heather pulled me away from my packing and turned me to face her. She widened her pale-blue eyes. You are gonna love Boston. Did I tell you how much you’re gonna love Boston?

I grabbed her shoulders and gazed at her with feigned earnestness. I think you might have mentioned that I’m gonna love Boston.

Over the last few weeks she’d been talking incessantly about her country. It was as if America were an invention that she had been crafting alone for years and was about to unveil.

Dave appeared in the doorway and passed me the telephone. It’s your mum.

I cradled the phone against my shoulder and kept folding clothes. Hi, Mum.

My parents live in Rockhampton, a regional city about eight hours’ drive north of Brisbane. When I was growing up there, Rockhampton was known for being the Beef Capital of Australia. There are still life-size concrete statues of bulls dotted through the town. But I don’t know if it’s the capital of anything now.

Mum said, We just wanted to call and say goodbye.

Dad, on the extension in the bedroom, said, Hello, Michelle.

Mum would be in her recliner, with the remote control on the armrest and a poodle in her lap. Dad would be preparing for bed, because even though he’s retired he still goes to bed at 8 p.m. after a lifetime of dawn starts as a concrete-truck driver.

Have you packed? asked Mum.

Have you got enough warm clothes? asked Dad.

Yep, all packed.

Heather grinned as she surveyed the mess of clothes on the bed.

Well, Mum said, make sure you stay with Heather at all times.

Apparently Heather, being American, was impervious to danger.

Mum, I’m twenty-nine years old.

I know, but you haven’t been overseas. It’s a dangerous place, America. She hadn’t been overseas either, but she knew all about America from watching CSI.

I’ll be fine. And I’ll call to let you know I’ve arrived safely.

Okay. Bye, Shelley. We love you.

I love you, too.

Yep, righty-o, said Dad.

I hung up the phone and looked at it for a second as though it might provide some answers. My parents knew we were going to Canada, and they knew why we were going there. But they avoided discussion of my marriage at all costs. Would they ever acknowledge my relationship, or would it be forever invisible to them?

It was November 2005, and same-sex marriage was legal in the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Canada. It was November 2005, and it had been fifteen months since the Australian government banned same-sex marriage.

I threw the phone onto the bed and pushed Heather down beside the piles of clothes.

Did you pack the rings yet? I asked, kissing her neck.

She pulled me tight against her. I sure did!

We were going to the United States. We were going to Canada. And, if the plane didn’t crash and the laws didn’t change, we were getting married.

*

As we prepared for our trip, my happiness was tempered with disappointment that none of my family and just one of my friends would see me get married. This absence was amplified by the fact that my parents refused to acknow­ledge my sexuality or my relationship with Heather, and wished I would meet a nice man and settle down.

It wasn’t just my parents who were in denial about the impending nuptials, but also my country. Heather and I knew that our marriage would mean nothing in legal terms when we left Canada for the United States, or when we returned to Australia.

In 2004 the Australian parliament had changed the Marriage Act to specify that ‘marriage’ means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. Before then, the Act didn’t mention men and women at all. In case there was any remaining uncertainty, the Act was also amended to state that a same-sex marriage performed in a foreign country must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia.

One of the things that bothered me most about the situation was the invisibility of our predicament. The more difficult a government makes it to record our relationships, the easier it becomes for people to say, now and in the future, that these relationships don’t or didn’t exist. The more invisible you make something, the harder it is to prove that it matters. So much queer history has been lost, and so much is disputed. So much is concealed behind tales of spinster aunts, playboy bachelors, life-long friendships. We inherit a history of meaningful silences and notable absences. And I was sick of it.

So, confronted by all this silence and denial, Heather and I decided to make our own kind of noise, find our own kind of visibility. If my country wouldn’t allow the wedding, we would go to another country to marry. And if Australia and the United States refused to acknowledge the wedding certificate, fine. I’d document what happened in an irrefutable way: I’d write about the wedding and the journey leading up to it. It would be a permanent record. A testament. Proof.

*

I was ten years old the first time I upset my family with my views on marriage. It was my birthday, and I was ripping the sticky tape off a present from Thelma, the more crotchety of my crotchety grandmothers. The gift wasn’t firm enough to be books, or small enough to be Smurf figurines, or large enough to be roller-skates – all things I needed. Instead, Thelma had given me towels. Bath towels. A matching set of two.

They’re for your glory box, Thelma said, pleased with herself.

My what?

Your glory box.

I gave her a blank look.

Vicki, don’t you tell this child anything?

A glory box, Mum said to me, is a collection of household things, like towels and saucepans and crockery. Things that you need when you get married.

That didn’t sound like marriage – it sounded like chores.

I stared at Mum and Thelma as if they were dense. But I’m not getting married.

Not right now, you’re not, said Thelma. You save the glory box for when you’re older.

So, not only was it a stupid present, it was also a stupid present that I wasn’t allowed to use for at least eight years. Or, in my case, never.

No, I told them, I’m not getting married. Ever.

They shook their heads and smiled at me.

Thelma said, I used to say that when I was your age. You’ll change your mind.

No, I won’t.

Yes, you will. You have to get married if you want to have a baby.

No, I don’t!

Michelle! said Mum. Don’t be so bold!

I was always in trouble for being bold. For a long time, I didn’t know what the word truly meant. I thought it meant bad. It seemed to cover minor transgressions, such as being a smart-arse in public or refusing to follow an order. Over time, though, I noticed inconsistency in Mum’s use of the term. Sometimes, what was funny in private was bold in public. Bewildered, I consulted the dictionary. Bold could mean rude or impudent, but that wasn’t all. Bold was daring, and fearless, and brave. Once I learned this, I felt a little thrill whenever Mum said I was too bold.

While Mum found space in the linen cupboard for my glory towels, I headed outside to my cubbyhouse. I didn’t care what Grammy or Mum said. I was never going to marry anyone. And I was going to be bold.

*

As our plane angled into the midday sky, Heather leaned across me to peer out the window. She sculpts her short hair straight up, so her head is sharp with blonde flames. Now I smelled her melon-scented hair gel as she stared out at the view.

Look, she said, there’s the stadium. We’re flying over our house. She craned her neck to try to pinpoint our street, our roof.

I watched Brisbane shrink away below us and I wondered if someone down there was looking up and tracking our path. I liked the thought that there might be a kid on a trampoline gazing skyward, imagining distant places and watching us disappear.

While we passed over different parts of Brisbane, Heather named the places she recognised. She knows more about some parts of the city than me, I thought, even though she’s only been here for two years and I’ve been here for twelve.

Heather is a born taxonomist, always asking me for the names and functions of Australian things, like plants, animals and birds. She makes me realise how little I know about my own country. What is it? she asks. And when I can name something – bindii, bandicoot, currawong – she says the word back to me, slowly, to remember. Bindii, bandicoot, currawong. Hearing the words in her accent is like hearing them for the first time. She makes the world strange and beautiful again.

When we left Brisbane that day, though, I couldn’t be enchanted. I was relieved to be heading off on my wedding journey, but I was also anxious about the trip. I’d been trying to pretend that this wasn’t a big deal, that I