The Wife's Tale

It's the eve of her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and Mary Gooch is waiting for her husband, Jimmy, to come home. But Mary isn't just waiting for Jimmy. She is waiting for a mother who accepts her, children she is unable to have, a life beyond the well-worn path from her bedroom to the refrigerator. Mary is waiting for her life to start.В As she waits for Jimmy, the night passes into day and it becomes clear that he isn't coming home. A letter left in the mailbox confirms her worst fears and Mary is left alone to make a difficult decision. Should she break free from her inertia and salvage her marriage? Or is the pull of the familiarity of her home, the predictability of her daily routines, too strong to resist?В For the first time in her life, Mary decides to leave and boards a plane to California. She flies across the country in a desperate attempt to find her husband. The clothes, the marriage, the home that had given her a place to hide for so long are all gone. Mary soon finds that the bright sun and broad vistas of California force her to look up from the pavement, stop waiting and start living. What she finds when she does is an inner strength she's never felt before. Through it all, Mary not only finds kindred spirits, but reunites with a more intimate stranger no longer sequestered by fear and habit: herself. In Leaford, Mary Gooch's Life Is Strictly Circumscribed. She's Even Worn A Rut In The Carpet Between The Bed And The Kitchen, So Often Has The 302-pound Woman Made The Trip. So When Mary's Handsome Husband Disappears On The Eve Of Their Silver Wedding Anniversary, Mary Wonders Whether Her Size Or Her Aversion To Adventure Chased Him Off. With Few Clues, Mary Leaves Her Small Town For One Of The First Times In Her Life, Venturing First To Toronto And Then To The Suburbs Of Los Angeles, Where A Series Of Encounters With Strangers Shakes Her Out Of Her Lethargy. Lori Lansens. In Lori Lansens' Leaford, Ontario - home of Rose and Ruby Darlen, the sorrowing parents of Larry Merkel, and not far from Rusholme where Addy Shadd once looked after an abandoned child - love and grief combine to awaken an obese woman from her loneliness. When her husband doesn't come home on the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary, Mary Gooch, who has never learned to be self-sufficient, sets out on a truly remarkable journey of self-discovery that takes her first to the big city and then to another country